Most stocks end lower

MOST local stocks were in the doldrums Friday, weighed down by a discounted share-sale of Manila Electric Co. and weak regional markets.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index slipped 27.33 points or 0.41 percent to close at 6,621.02.

There were 55 advancers that were outmatched by 85 decliners while 56 stocks closed unchanged.

The day’s biggest decliner and most actively traded stock was Meralco, which tumbled 8.2 percent to close at P277.60 as an initial sale involving a 5.7-percent stake by conglomerate San Miguel Corp. was closed at a discounted price of P270 each.

The P17.4-billion Meralco block sale bloated the day’s value turnover to P26.57 billion.

Aside from Meralco, DMCI, Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Jollibee, Metrobank, BDO, ICTSI, Globe, Ayala Land and Belle also ended lower.

On the other hand, the day’s index decline was tempered by the gains of Bloomberry, Alliance Global Inc., Manila Water, Aboitiz Power, First Gen, Metro Pacific Investments and Megaworld.

For the week, the index was still up 46.81 points or a modest 0.7 percent as investors reassessed earlier fears of the US Federal Reserve’s tapering of its asset-buying activities.

On Friday, however, regional markets mostly faltered on profit-taking and also following reports of lower-than-expected earnings of US technology stocks Google and Microsoft. Doris C. Dumlao