PSEi slips below 8,000

THE LOCAL stock barometer slipped below the 8,000 mark on Monday as investors pocketed gains after a six-day run-up.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index shed 43.81 points or 0.55 percent to close at 7,986.25.

Stock debutant Cemex Holdings, however, defied the overall market downturn. The first cement firm to list on the PSE in two decades advanced by 3.26 percent. It was was the most actively traded stock, with some P2.94 billion worth of shares changing hands at the PSE.

Manny Cruz, chief strategist at Asiasec Equities, said the PSEi’s decline was due to profit-taking alongside the P25.1 billion Cemex initial public offering.

“Traditionally, it has been an occurrence that when there’s a hefty offering, share prices succumb to profit-taking,” Cruz said. “But this is a healthy pullback. We are still bullish on the market.”

Cruz said the PSEi may next target 8,125 possibly by August, given the large amount of foreign funds flowing into the market.

Meanwhile, all counters ended lower but the most battered was the property sub-index which slipped by 1 percent.

By yearend, he said the PSEi could reach a new high of 8,400.

Total value turnover for the day amounted to P8.7 billion. Net foreign buying amounted to P498 million.

Despite the PSEi’s decline, market breadth was still positive. There were 99 advancers that beat 94 decliners while 49 stocks were unchanged. This suggests that investors looked for buying opportunities outside the large-cap stocks.

Foreign money continued to flow into the exchange.

The PSEi was weighed down by Megaworld, which slipped by 2.92 percent while ALI, PLDT, SM Prime, Jollibee, Metrobank and AGI all slumped by over 1 percent.

On the other hand, URC, MPI, BDO and AEV chalked up modest gains.

Outside the PSEi, Nickel Asia (+1.81 percent) was a notable gainer alongside Cirtek (+0.48 percent) and RRHI (+0.17 percent) which inched up in relatively heavy volume.