MANILA, 18 November — Stockbrokers started the week playing board games because of inactivity on the trading floor of the Philippine Stock Exchange and ended the same week swamped by orders.

Thus the market improved more than three percent to 1,033.34 points, having added on 33.55 points. Market turnovers also rose, with value turnover rising 2.79 percent to 2.2 billion pesos ($42.3 million) and actual trading increasing 68.5 percent to 1.6 billion shares.

Traders said the Philippine market was affected by developments abroad after an American passenger plane crashed into a New York neighborhood on Monday, killing up to 268 people, sparking fears of a fresh attack on the city.

"It could create more anxieties and dampen consumer confidence. What happened is another blow to the US economy which is going to affect its trading partners, including the Philippines," Vistan said. But trading improved the day after because the Taleban retreated from Kabul. Traders said this caused a flurry of bargain hunting.

Jose Vistan, analyst at AB Capital Securities, said the market cheered developments in Afghanistan but buying was subdued by lack of liquidity with a number of foreign brokerages winding down their operations.

Sentiment on the floor was so good that on the fourth trading day last week, Manila shares closed at their highest in one month on broad-based buying as gains in overseas markets lifted sentiment.

Traders said local players cheered the sustained rise in US markets and the progress in the US-led campaign in Afghanistan, giving investors a reason to hunt for bargains.

"A lot of people are putting 2001 stories behind them. More investors are buying issues on expectations that economies will recover next year and these recoveries are consumer-led," said Grace Cerdenia, research head at 2TradeAsia.com. Henry Ong, KGI Securities vice president for sales said last Friday that "this is just a continuation from Thursday’s rally."

On the local front, the fundamentals are still the same with the government expecting to meet its growth targets. But mainly, sentiment improved due to overseas developments," he said.