Stocks finished higher in line with the Southeast Asian region on Thursday as the US Federal Reserve said it will keep its accommodative policy “for some time” after it raised rates by .25 percentage points.

The Philippine Stock Exchange closed 24.81 points higher to 7,278.60 despite a decline in the mining sub-index.

In the broader market, there were 102 gainers, 76 declines and 47 issues steady.

Volume reached 2.01 billion shares valued at P6.14 billion from Wednesday’s 1.8 billion shares worth P8.27 billion.

Among gainers were Boulevard Holdings Inc, up 12.50 percent to 0.072 despite reporting on Monday that its sales went down three percent in the nine-month period ending February 28, 2017 and Asian Terminals Inc, up 8,77 percent to P12.40 after saying it will build a multi-level storage facility at Batangas Port.

The peso had its biggest gain against the US dollar in weeks, finishing 22 centavos higher to P50.120. Volume rose to $467.50 million from $394.80 million at the Philippine Dealing System. DMS