PH stock index tests 6,900 before succumbing to profit-taking
Source: pse.com.ph
MANILA, Philippines—The local stocks index soared to new heights, breaching 6,900 on Monday but gave up hefty intra-day gains at close as profit-taking dominated the afternoon session.
The Philippine Stock Exchange closed 7.88 points or 0.12 percent lower at 6,839.59. The index, however, rallied by as much as 1 percent in morning trade and hit a new record intra-day peak of 6,956.92.
The morning session was marked by a buying frenzy as a follow-through after last week’s sovereign investment grade rating given by Fitch Ratings. In the afternoon, however, the trend reversed and also especially as regional trading was mostly choppy.
Veteran broker Ismael Cruz, president of IGC Securities said the euphoria had begun but a correction was bound to come. “After that the market will advance again and will overshoot possibly to 7,200 or even 7,500 for the rest of 2013,” Cruz said.
Value turnover amounted to P21.74 billion. There were 72 advancers that were outnumbered by 87 decliners while 46 stocks were unchanged.
The index was weighed down most by the selldown on the following large-cap stocks: PLDT (-2.14 percent), URC (-1.77 percent), AGI (-1.18 percent), ALI (-3.98 percent), Bloomberry (-2.67 percent), Meralco (-2.33 percent) and AEV (-1.45 percent). BPI, Philex, Jollibee, BDO, Megaworld and MWC also contributed to the decline.
On the other hand, gains posted by the following stocks tempered the pullback: SM Prime (+3.66 percent), ICTSI (+3.15 percent), SMDC (+3.14 percent), Semirara (+2.62 percent), AC (+2.47 percent), DMCI (+1.55 percent), SMC (+1.3 percent), JG Summit (+1.29 percent) and FGEN (+1.01 percent).
