Stocks tumble on foreign worries

Local stocks tumbled Friday as investors were unnerved by the bloodbath in Wall Street overnight arising from escalating concerns on the US economy and the debt crisis in Europe.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index gave up 63.98 points or 1.42 percent to finish at 4,437.55 Friday. This developed as the closely watched Dow Jones Industrial Index slid 512.76 points or 4.3 percent on Thursday to 11,383.68.

At the local market, all counters declined, with the mining/oil, property and financial counters taking the worst beating.

Value turnover was extraordinarily high at P35.35 billion due to a series of block transactions on Manila Electric Co. at P90 a share. There were P29 billion worth of shares crossed on the market, mostly consisting of Meralco shares acquired by San Miguel Corp. from state-owned Government Service Insurance System.

There were nearly nine decliners for every gainer. Foreign investors were in a net selling position to the tune of P549 million.

Lepanto “A” (open only to local investors) and “B” (open to both local and foreign investors), Aboitiz Power, Alliance Global Inc., Energy Development Corp., Metrobank, ICTSI, Megaworld, BDO, Philex and DMCI led the index lower.   San Miguel Corp., Semirara, Atlas Mining, Manila Mining, Leisure & Resorts and Oriental Peninsula also succumbed to profit-taking.

On the other hand, Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Zeus Holdings and PLDT bucked the downtrend. Doris C. Dumlao