PSEi falls below 8,700
The local stock barometer fell sharply on Wednesday as investors braced for an uptick in local inflation and interest rates.
Tracking weak sentiment in Wall Street overnight, the main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) shed 109.05 points or 1.25 percent to close at 8,613.65.
With the market’s recent correction driven by inflation and interest rate-related woes, Papa Securities said that two dates to definitely look forward to would be the US Federal Reserve’s policy meeting on March 21 and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) monetary setting on March 22.
The market is also expecting the US Fed to hike rates during this March meeting while it’s likewise not far-fetched for the BSP to follow suit, Papa Securities said.
“It looks like the index is encountering some weakness at the 8,700 level… Looking forward, we may see more investor caution in the coming days especially as we approach earnings season,” the brokerage house said.
The PSEi was weighed down by the financial, industrial, holding firm and property counters, which all tumbled by over 1 percent.
The mining/oil counter bucked the day’s downturn, rising by 2.64 percent due to the 18.89-percent rally of PXP Energy, which benefited from talks of the Philippines going into joint oil exploration with China.
The services counter firmed up by a modest 0.41 percent.
Value turnover for the day amounted to P9.53 billion.
There were 128 decliners that outnumbered 82 advancers while 46 stocks were unchanged.
The PSEi was weighed down by the decline of URC and Megaworld, which both slid by over 3 percent.
Investors sold down shares of Ayala Land and BPI, which both fell by over 2 percent, while SM Investments, BDO, PLDT, Jollibee and JG Summit all lost over 1 percent of their market cap.
Ayala Corp., SM Prime and AGI also slipped.
Security Bank defied the PSEi’s decline, gaining 1.18 percent ahead of the release of its fourth quarter 2017 results.
On the other hand, investors looked for trading opportunities outside the PSEi. Aside from PXP, Now Corp. gained 3.29 percent and was the day’s most actively traded company following the release of guidelines for the third telecom player that the government wants to bring to the market.
Golden Haven also sizzled in the market, gaining 50 percent.
Bloomberry firmed up by 0.71 percent.
