Main-share index falls by 1.78%

The local stock barometer yesterday pulled back sharply as foreign investors resumed selldown of local equities.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) slid by 143.09 points or 1.78 percent to close at 7,899.98. Regional markets were mixed as trade war tensions started to ease.

For the four-day trading week, the index lost 45.68 points from the previous week’s finish of 7,945.66.

All counters ended lower, but the most battered was the holding firm counter which fell by 2.87 percent as investors sold down shares of SM Investments and Metro Pacific, which both slid by over 4 percent.

The property counter lost 1.72 percent.

There were 134 decliners that overwhelmed 76 advancers while 43 stocks were unchanged.

Value turnover for the day hit P6 billion. Sentiment was weighed down by foreign selling, which netted P829.5 million for the day, reversing the modest net foreign buying seen in the previous day.

Shares of Ayala Land, Ayala Corp. and Jollibee all tumbled by over 2 percent while SM Prime, BPI, GT Capital and JG Summit all lost over 1 percent.

BDO, Meralco, AEV and URC also slipped.

There was also profit-taking outside of PSEi stocks. Now Corp. went down by 5.03 percent while PXP fell 4.43 percent.

In the meantime, Metrobank bucked the day’s downturn with its 2.14-percent rise.

One notable gainer outside the PSEi was Vitarich, which rallied by 15.13 percent, while Bloomberry extended Thursday’s upswing with a 0.47-percent gain.