PSEi slips on profit-taking

MANILA, Philippines–Local stocks pulled back slightly on Monday as investors pocketed recent gains and reassessed views on the US Federal Reserve’s tapering of easy money policy.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index gave up 10.27 points or 0.16 percent to close at 6,597.56, ending the four-day run-up seen last week.

Dealers said investors were profit-taking after stocks climbed last week especially after US solons struck a deal to hike debt ceiling, thereby avoiding a debt default.

Value turnover amounted to P7.98 billion. There were 70 advancers which were slightly edged out by 77 decliners while 46 stocks were unchanged.

The PSEi stocks which dragged the main index the most was Semirara (-3.57 percent) while LTG, Metrobank and Globe faltered by over 2 percent.  MWC, AC and MPI also lost more than 1 percent while AEV, PLDT and ICTSI likewise contributed to the day’s index decline.

On the other hand, the PSEi’s pullback was tempered by the gains of GTCAP and EDC, which both rose by over 3 percent.  Other big gainers were URC, SMC, Megaworld, Petron, AGI, Jollibee, ALI and JG Summit.

By counter, the financial, holding firm, services and mining/oil counters dragged the index while the industrial and property counters firmed up.

Many analysts are now expecting that the US Fed won’t taper its aggressive bond buying until the first quarter of 2014, at the earliest.