This week, the local stock market will be waiting for the June inflation rate announcement and some large cap corporate earnings results, although volume may be affected with the start of the Chinese Ghost Month.

“The local market is expected to move sideways as investors wait for catalysts. In particular, investors are expected to watch out for our July inflation data,” said Philstocks Financial Senior Supervisor for Research Japhet Tantiangco.

He noted that, “A slowdown from June’s 6.1 percent may spur positive sentiment, while a further acceleration may cause selling pressures in the local bourse.” Investors are also expected to take cues from upcoming second quarter corporate earnings reports.

“Preliminary indications on interim results from select large caps have been encouraging, especially on quarter-on-quarter trend,” said 2TradeAsia.com.

It added that, “Affirmations will be highlighted this week, specifically for other large caps slated to report on first half results: BDO, SM, MPI, TEL, SMC Group, SCC, RRHI, ICT and ALI. Combined, these account for around 38 percent to 40 percent of the main index basket.”

Meanwhile, Tantiangco noted that the Peso is now back above the 56.00 per dollar level and, “if its appreciation continues, then it may help spur optimism in the market.”

“With the onset of the Chinese Ghost Festival, expect turnover to remain light. Contrarians, meanwhile, are likely to prowl on the market's oversold state, with price to earnings ratios already trading cheaply at 13 times based on 2022 estimates, 11 times for 2023 forecast earnings,” said 2TradeAsia.com.

It added that, “This lull presents opportunities to accumulate, especially for stocks with solid prospects to unfold for the remainder this year.”

For stock picks, Abacus Securities Corporation is taking a look at Wilcon Depot after its better-than-expected performance for the first half of 2022.

“At this point, we may have to reassess our neutral stance on WLCON. With the better than expected results, the stock is cheaper than it appears and the company looks set to benefit from a surge in construction activity after the very strong earthquake up north,” the brokerage said.

Meanwhile, Abacus is rating Bloomberry a Trading Buy after noting that strong performance of other gaming firms City of Dreams and Okada Manila.

“It looks like a sector-wide improvement which should be good news for Bloomberry as Solaire is within a stone’ throw of both CoD and Okada Manila. BLOOM has been trading mostly sideways - with a downward bias - since April so this could push the stock above its recent range,” it said.

COL Financial also has a BUY rating for Bloomberry despite its higher net debt balance at the end of 2021 which resulted in a lower fair value estimate.

“With still significant upside to our new fair value estimate and lower relative valuation, we maintain our BUY rating on BLOOM,” COL said.

COL also has a BUY rating on ChinaBank because “We expect that its lending business and core fee income to continue to expand as economic growth rebounds this year.”

“Moreover, we believe that its asset quality will remain healthy as businesses continue to operate at higher capacities. Expected hikes in BSP policy rates will also lead an opportunity to expand the bank’s net interest margins,” it added.