Stocks tumble on global fears

THE LOCAL stock barometer tumbled to the 6,600 level on Tuesday—the first trading day of the Lunar Year of the Fire Monkey—as fears of a global recession roiled global markets.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) lost 127.7 points or 1.89 percent to close at 6,637.43, tracking sluggish regional markets and the overnight bloodbath in Wall Street.

The decline was led by the cyclical counters—financial and property—which both slid by more than 2 percent. The industrial, holding firm and services counters were all up by more than 1 percent. The mining/oil counter, which was much battered in recent months, rebounded by 7.14 percent due to an extraordinary trade in Lepanto (+48.35 percent).

Trading volume was thin at P3.5 billion. There were 61 advancers, which were outnumbered by 119 decliners, while 30 stocks were unchanged.

The PSEi was led lower by Megaworld, which fell by 4.44 percent, while Ayala Land and Metrobank declined by more than 3 percent. URC, JG Summit and DMCI all faltered by more than 2 percent while Ayala Corp., Jollibee, SM Prime, GTCAP, Semirara, PLDT, Globe and RLC all fell by 1 percent. MPI and EDC also contributed to the day’s decline.

Outside of the PSEi, gaming stock Melco was down 9.27 percent. Meralco bucked the day’s downturn, rising by 0.7 percent. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla