Foreign selling pulls down PH stocks

The local stock market slipped on Thursday, tracking sluggish regional markets, as fears of economic contagion from Turkey soured foreign investors’ appetite.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) shed 23.56 points, or 0.31 percent to close at 7,517.36 as more foreign funds flowed out of the country.

Local stock brokerage Papa Securities noted that the US markets had taken another hit overnight on renewed fears of the crisis in Turkey spreading to other emerging markets.

“Peculiarly enough, the worries ensue once again when Turkey’s Central Bank has already committed itself to taking steps to solve the problem and the Lira is already starting to improve. This really begs the question if all this is overblown,” Papa Securities said in a research note.

Locally, the brokerage noted that the June overseas Filipino remittances data had come in much lower than expected, which could lead to more worries for the peso.

June’s figure came in at $2.36 billion, down by 4.5 percent year-on-year.

Papa Securities noted that thus was “a far cry from consensus expectations of an increase of 5.4 percent.”

The PSEi was weighed down by the industrial, holding firm, services, mining/oil and property counters.

Only the financial counter eked out modest gains.

Value turnover at the local market amounted to around P5.4 billion. There were 108 decliners that outnumbered 91 advancers while 49 stocks were unchanged.

Foreign investors were net sellers to the tune of P884 million.

Investors sold down shares of AEV, which slumped by 3.84 percent, while GT Capital, Jollibee and ICTSI all tumbled by over 2 percent.

LTG fell by 1.59 percent while Puregold, SM Prime, Ayala Corp., Metrobank and BPI also slipped.