Philippine stocks tumble on profit-taking, foreign ownership concerns

Photo from PSE

MANILA, Philippines—Local stocks tumbled on Monday due to profit-taking and concerns on foreign ownership regulations in the country.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index shed 36.66 points, or 0.63 percent, to close at 5,757.54, pulling back from last week’s all-time highs.

“I guess there was already profit-taking from the high,” said Jose Mari Lacson, head of research at Campos Lanuza & Co.

The Makati Business Club also warned that some P383 billion worth of stocks would have to be unloaded by foreign investors if the Securities and Exchange Commission were to prescribe a 60-40 percent local-foreign ownership ratio on all classes of shares.  This is as a result of an earlier ruling on the foreign ownership of index heavyweight PLDT.

PLDT, the most valuable stock in the market with a single largest weight of 12.59 percent on the PSEi, fell by 1.06 percent.  BDO also dropped by 2.41 percent.

Other large-cap stocks that dropped sharply on Monday were AEV (-3.47 percent), Megaworld (-2.87 percent), RLC (-2.39 percent), MWC (-1.84 percent), Globe (-1.49 percent), URC (-1.29 percent), Belle (-1. percent) and MPI (-0.88 percent).

On the other hand, the index stocks that bucked the day’s downturn were Metrobank (+1.48 percent), ALI (+1.02 percent) and AP (+1.08 percent).

MIH was up by 2.67 percent in heavy trade on news that Melco is taking over the company as a prospective backdoor listing vehicle for its Philippine gaming interests.

Value turnover amounted to P5.89 billion. There were 67 advancers, which were overwhelmed by 96 decliners while 49 stocks were unchanged.