MANILA, Philippines -- The Philippine Stock Market continued its record-breaking run Wednesday.

Share prices gained another 1.41 percent to another all-time high, with investors positive on the economic outlook, dealers said.

The upswing in major Asian markets and in New York overnight buoyed investor sentiment, overshadowing concerns the government may struggle to keep its budget gap within target this year because of weak revenues, they added.

The composite index added 51.74 points at 3,718.88 after also setting a new intra-day high of 3,721.26. The all-share index jumped 35.30 points to 2,366.64.

There were 95 advancers and 39 decliners, while 38 stocks were unchanged.

A total of 6.64 billion shares, worth P6.38 billion, changed hands.

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), the country’s biggest telecom firm and the biggest in market capitalization, jumped P45 to P2,685, tracking gains in its American Depositary Receipts overnight.

“PLDT is sort of a proxy for the Philippine economy. Foreign institutional investors are maintaining their buy call on the Philippines given the country’s solid fundamentals,” said Jose Vistan of AB Capital Securities Inc.

“Technically the market is overbought. But fundamentally, and given the strong inflows, we expect the market to hit new highs in the coming sessions, and this certainly is the perfect time for IPOs,” Vistan added.

Two Philippine companies are scheduled to launch initial public offerings (IPOs) of stock this month -- Aboitiz Power and Phoenix Petroleum -- which together may raise around P12.5 billion.

Lim Su Sian, an economist at Singapore-based DBS Bank, expects the Philippine economy to continue expanding, by 5.5 percent this year and in 2008, from 5.4 percent in 2006.

“While it is too premature to conclude that will be able to balance the budget by 2008 as promised, steady revenue growth should nevertheless be sufficient to keep the positive fiscal story in place, even if no upgrades in ratings/outlook have come through yet so far this year,” Lim added.

The government said Tuesday the budget swung back to a deficit of P1.7 billion in May after a P12-billion surplus in April amid weaker than expected tax collections.

For the five months to May, the deficit stood at P41.8 billion, and the government remains optimistic the full-year target ceiling will not be exceeded.