Stock market index closes lower

PSE index as of 3:46PM, February 26, 2013. Screengrab from https://www.pse.com.ph/

MANILA, Philippines—Local stocks pulled back from record-highs on Tuesday as a much-awaited correction was triggered by a global slump in equities against the backdrop of a political stalemate in Italy.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index shed 90.66 points or 1.35 percent to close at 6,630.67.

All counters ended in the red but the biggest decline was incurred by the property counter (-2.41 percent).

The pullback did not come as a surprise as the overbought stock market was hungry for a correction especially as the piercing of the 6,700-mark on Monday led many investors to lock up recent gains, stock dealers said.  This developed as a political deadlock in Italy depressed stocks on Wall Street overnight as well as in most Asian markets.

Fiscal worries over the euro zone intensified anew following reports that no party won a Senate majority in Italy’s elections.

At the local market, turnover amounted to P10.5 billion.  There were about twice as many decliners as there were advancers for the day.

The biggest index decliners were ICTSI (-4.17 percent), ALI (-3.5 percent), Jollibee (-2.7 percent), BPI (-2.62 percent), Megaworld (-2.5 percent), AEV (-2.32 percent), RLC (-1.98 percent), SMC (-1.63 percent), SM Prime (-1.6 percent) and Metrobank (-1.55 percent).

The day’s losses were tempered by the gains eked out by EDC (+2.11 percent) alongside those of AP, Meralco, FGEN, MPI, Philex and DMCI.

EDC announced that its BacMan geothermal facility had resumed operations, thereby contributing 100 megawatts to the grid.