Stocks lose steam

MOST local stocks traded lower Thursday, weighed down by the discounted equity placement by conglomerate JG Summit.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 57.79 points, or 0.77 percent, to close at 7,416.31. The day’s decline was led by the holding firm counter, which tumbled by 1.83 percent following JG Summit’s discounted share-sale.

Shares of JG Summit, the day’s most actively traded stock, slid by 11.16 percent to P62.10. This was after the conglomerate placed out P8.8 billion worth of shares at P61 apiece—a discount of 12.7 percent from Wednesday’s closing.

Metrobank (-2.86 percent) also weighed down the index, alongside Ayala Corp. (-1.07 percent), DMCI (-1.34 percent) and Megaworld (-1.7 percent).

ALI, URC, SMIC, SM Prime and BDO also closed lower.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P19.8 billion, bloated by the JG Summit equity deal. Foreign buying amounted to P9.05 billion against foreign selling of P5.5 billion.

Most counters faltered except for the industrial counter, which slightly firmed up.

Market breadth was negative, with 106 decliners overwhelming 65 advancers, while 48 stocks were unchanged.

On the other hand, the stocks that bucked the downturn included FGEN (+4.78 percent) and AGI (+2.16 percent).

The completion of a treasury stock placeout deal by FGEN removed the market overhang on the company.

GTCAP, EDC, PLDT and Jollibee also traded higher.

Elsewhere in the region, trading was mixed ahead of the European Central Bank’s monetary stimulus decision.