PSEi shrugs off UK monetary easing

THE LOCAL stock barometer ended flat on Friday, failing to ride on a regional upswing inspired by Bank of England’s better-than-expected monetary easing.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index shed 8.22 points or 0.1 percent to close at 7,970.35 as investors digested the latest stream of second quarter corporate earnings.

The PSEi was led lower by the financial, holding firm, services and mining/oil counters.

On the other hand, the interest rate-sensitive property counter gained 1.07 percent. The industrial counter slightly increased.

Value turnover for the day was relatively thin at P6.57 billion.

Despite the PSEi’s decline, market breadth was positive. There were 102 advancers which edged out 84 decliners, suggesting that investors were still looking for buying opportunities outside of pricey large-cap stocks.

SM Prime and Megaworld led the PSEi higher, both gaining over 2 percent while GT Capital, Ayala Corp. and BDO all firmed up.

But investors gobbled up shares of non-PSEi stocks like Max’s Group (+7.93 percent), D&L Industries and Vitarich Corp. (both up by over 5 percent), Cemex (+2.5 percent) and Cirtek (+0.22 percent) which all advanced in heavy volume.

On the other hand, Metrobank and Jollibee fell by over 1.9 percent while URC, Globe, PLDT, ALI, AEV and MPI all slipped.

Elsewhere in the region, stock markets were mostly higher in reaction to BoE’s larger-than-expected monetary easing. The UK central bank cut rates by 25 basis points, increased asset purchases by GBP 70 billion and created a GBP 100-billion cheap funding facility for banks. The BoE chief also suggested room for further easing down the road. “This continues to support market expectations of further easing from developed market central banks,” Citigroup said in a research note./rga