THE LOCAL stock barometer slipped after a six-day run-up on Friday as investors pocketed gains while regional markets weighed China’s first quarter economic report card.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 35.98 points or 0.49 percent to close at 7,321.30.
All counters ended in the red but the most battered was the mining/oil counter which slumped by 1.32 percent.
Value turnover for the day amounted to P6.18 billion. There were nearly twice as much decliners (128) than advancers (68) while 46 stocks were unchanged.
Megaworld and MPI led the PSEi lower, both slipping by over 2 percent while ALI, URC and Metrobank all fell by over 1 percent.
DMCI, SMIC and Jollibee also slipped.
Outside of PSEi stocks, Security Bank fell by 3.06 percent while Xurpas slumped by 2.83 percent. The day’s most actively traded company, retailer RRHI, fell by 1.39 percent.
On the other hand, conglomerates AC and JG Summit as well as BPI were unscathed.
NOW, which has been perked up by a broadband business play, rose by 11.82 percent.
On Friday, China reported that its first quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed to 6.7 percent year-on-year while GDP deflator – seen as a more representative measure of economy-wide prices – reversed to 0.5 percent for the same period. Industrial production rebounded on rising capacity utilization of heavy industrial sectors, such as steel and cement while retail sales growth was supported by recovering auto sales and housing-related items sales.
“Real activity and trade data in March suggest growth may have stabilized somewhat. To sustain this growth momentum, more policy support is still warranted, especially the authorities will continue to reduce overcapacity in some heavy industrial sectors and encourage deleveraging in the corporate and local government sectors,” Citigroup said in a research note on Friday.
“As capital outflow has not slowed much, we maintain our call of another RRR (reserve requirement ratio) cut of 50 basis points in second quarter, and expect fiscal policy to play a more active role to support growth for the rest of the year.”