Stocks rallied in a sluggish session to finish a bit higher on Friday.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index closed 0.79 points higher to 7,226.70 points after being down by as much as 38 points at one stage.

Volume reached 1.83 billion shares valued at P 5.67 billion from Thursday’s turnover of 2.13 billion shares valued at P5.94 billion.

The mining and oil sub-sector lost 0.31 percent but most mining issues recovered from Thursday. Shares of Benguet Corp., one of the 23 firms recommended by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, for closure declined 5.26 percent to P1.80.

Philex Mining, which is not in the DENR list, declined 0.22 percent to P9.20..

Meanwhile the board of directors of San Miguel Pure Foods Co, Inc. in its meeting on Feb.2 approved the declaration of cash dividends for common and preferred shareholders to stockholders on record as of February 17, at P1.50 and P14.14225 per share.

Payment date is March 1, 2017 for the common shares and March 13, 2017 for the series 2 preferred shares, the company said in a disclosure to the stock exchange.

The Philippine National Bank, in a disclosure to the exchange, said the Monetary Board, in its resolution on January 26, approved the request of bank to exercise its call option on the P3.5 billion Lower Tier 2 Unsecured Subordinated Debt issued on May 9, 2012.

The notes will be redeemed on May 10, 2017 at an amount equal to the aggregate issue price of the notes plus accrued and unpaid interest up to but excluding the call option date, PNB said.

The call option amount shall be paid to all noteholders on record as of April 25, 2017. No transfers shall be allowed from April 25 to May 9, 2017, it added,

The peso closed at P49.78 from Thursday’s P49.755. Volume reached $560.9 million from the previous session’s $667.4 million. DMS