PSEi falls amid central bank meetings

THE LOCAL stock barometer shied away from the 8,100 mark on Thursday as investors turned cautious over key central bank meetings in the US and Japan.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 75.5 points or 0.93 percent to close at 8,024,98 while second quarter local corporate earnings reports started to stream in.

Although the US Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady at its latest meeting, investors next speculate on a potential interest rate hike happening as early as December.

“As expected, Fed did not ruffle feathers at the July FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting. Fed delivered a well-calibrated message by acknowledging the improvement in US economic data but not committing to the timing of next hike. Our economist thinks that the earliest time for the next rate hike is December, as long as data remain ‘on track’ and no ‘event risk’ materializes,” Citigroup said in a research note.

Meanwhile, all eyes are on Bank of Japan’s meeting. Citi said expectations of BoJ easing were running high, citing bets of various combinations of rate cuts further into negative territory and increase in monetary base that may be announced on Friday (July 29).

At the local market, the holding firm and property counters led the PSEi lower, both declining by over 1 percent. The industrial and services counters also slipped.

On the other hand, the financial and mining/oil counters modestly climbed.

Value turnover amounted to P10.14 billion. There were only 70 advancers which were outnumbered by 121 decliners while 53 stocks were unchanged.

JG Summit weighed down the PSEi with its 3.05 percent drop while ALI and AEV both tumbled by over 2 percent.

SM Prime, AC and URC all slipped by over 1 percent while MPI, PLDT and Metrobank also declined.

Outside of the PSEi, one notable decliner was DoubleDragon which slid by 4 percent.

On the other hand, SMIC, GTCAP and Megaworld modestly gained.

Notable gainers outside the PSEi included newly listed Cemex (+1.16 percent), Vitarich (+8.53 percent) and Cebu Air (+5.2 percent).