PSEi slips after 6-day upswing

THE LOCAL stock barometer pulled back on Tuesday, weighed down by profit-taking and sluggish foreign investor sentiment at the end of first quarter local corporate earnings reporting season.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 39.12 points or 0.49 percent to close at 7,871.31. All counters ended in the red.

“The market is very lethargic. Foreign investors have been net sellers for the last two weeks,” said Manny Cruz, chief strategist at local stock brokerage AsiaSec Equities.

Cruz said during the run-up in the last six trading sessions, it’s the local investors who were buying while foreign investors were mostly selling. About a quarter of foreign inflows to the stock market since the start of the year had now gone out, he estimated.

“They feel that local valuations are stretched compared to (peers in the) region and that the recent earnings report did not support those valuations,” Cruz said.

During the first quarter reporting season, only a few issuers like Globe Telecom beat market expectations.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P6.3 billion. There were 80 advancers which were edged out by 103 decliners while 39 stocks were unchanged.

LTG and RLC were among the day’s most battered stocks, both falling by over 2 percent while AC also fell by 1.22 percent.

Investors also sold down shares of URC, GTCAP, AGI, Megaworld, BDO, ALI, SM Prime, Globe, Metrobank, Meralco, DMCI and SMIC.

Outside of PSEi, among the notable decliners was DNL, which fell by 2.07 percent.

Among those that bucked the downtrend were Bloomberry, which rose by 1.73 percent. This gaming stock has stabilized in the last two days after last week’s freefall arising from disappointing first quarter results. BPI also firmed up by 0.85 percent.

One notable gainer was APC, which surged by 25.76 percent in relatively heavy volume. This company has long been rumored as being groomed to become the holding firm of the energy assets of the SM group.