Stocks fall on continued profit-taking

LOCAL stocks fell for a third session Friday as the recent surge to successive all-time high levels lured profit-taking.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index slumped by 80.84 points or 1.4 percent to close at 5,707.11 as all counters were hit by heavy selling.

Earlier in the week, the PSEi marked a new all-time high closing of 5,831.50 on Dec. 11 and a record intra-day peak of 5,866.83 on Dec. 13.

The most battered counters were the financial, holding firm, services and property counters, which all slid by more than 1 percent.

Value turnover at the local bourse amounted to P12.77 billion. There were 71 advancers against 106 decliners while 34 stocks were unchanged.

The index was weighed down most by Ayala Land (-3.09 percent), Metrobank (-2.14 percent), Bank of the Philippine Islands (-2.07 percent), SM Investments (-1.92 percent), Aboitiz Power (-1.87 percent), Globe (-1.86 percent), Alliance Global Inc. (-1.8 percent), Megaworld (-1.75 percent), JG Summit (-1.52 percent) and Aboitiz Equity Ventures (-1.45 percent).

On the other hand, SM Prime and Energy Development Corp. were among those that bucked the downturn. Outside the index, those that gained in heavy volume were GTCap, D&L and Union Bank.

The day’s outperformer was TSI (+49.92 percent) on backdoor-listing speculation.

Elsewhere in the region, most stock markets firmed up on the back of a favorable manufacturing data in China. Doris C. Dumlao