Sluggish stocks trading persists

THE LOCAL stock barometer reversed early gains on Friday as profit-taking pressures persisted against a backdrop of weak regional markets.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 26.71 points or 0.35 percent to close at 7,509.94. Elsewhere across the region, trading was choppy as investors turned more cautious ahead of the US Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan policy meetings next week.

For the week, the index slipped by 4.28 points from last Friday’s close, after retesting the 7,700 levels during the week.

Sentiment was mixed across counters, with the industrial counter (-1.56 percent) weighing down the index the most. The financial, services and property counters also slipped while the holding firms and mining/oil counters modestly gained.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P7.83 billion. There were 84 advancers which were outnumbered by 100 decliners while 51 stocks were unchanged.

Foreign investors were net sellers in the market amounting to P380 million.

URC was a big drag to the index with its 3.21 percent drop while Megaworld also slipped by 2.22 percent. SM Prime, BDO and Petron all declined by over 1 percent while PLDT, MPI, AEV, JG Summit and AP all slipped.

Outside of PSEi stocks, notable decliners include DoubleDragon (-3.21 percent) which succumbed to profit-taking. Puregold (-0.24 percent) and RRHI (-0.86 percent) also slipped in heavy trade.

Meanwhile, the PSEi’s decline was tempered by the modest gains eked out by ALI, AC, Metrobank, SMIC and BPI.