PSEi falls below 6,400

THE LOCAL stock barometer slumped below the 6,400 mark on Monday as sagging commodity prices escalated global economic woes.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 114.41 points or 1.77 percent to close at 6,335.09.

All counters were in the red but the day’s decline was led by the property counter, which slid by 2.42 percent while the financial, industrial, holding firm and services counters all slipped by over 1 percent.

“The sell-off is due to many factors, including weak commodity prices, concerns on how it will impact overseas Filipino remittances, US Federal Reserve rate hike, the strong dollar and the weak peso, weak developing market economies, contagion etc,” said COL Financial head of research April Lee-Tan.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P5.58 billion. There were over thrice as many decliners for every single gainer.

Megaworld and parent conglomerate AGI led the day’s PSEi decliners, both sliding by over 4 percent while AC and DMCI fell by over 3 percent.

URC, ALI, SM Prime, BDO, Metrobank and JG Summit all slipped by over 2 percent while Globe, BPI and Jollibee also contributed to the PSEi’s decline.

Outside of the PSEi, RRHI (-3.83 percent) was also heavily battered.

MPI bucked the day’s downturn with its modest gain of 0.78 percent.

Non-PSEi stock Security Bank rose by 2.87 percent as investors factored in the favorable impact of the entry of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi as a new investor.