Stocks tumble on trade war woes

The local stock barometer tumbled on Monday as renewed US-China trade war jitters dragged regional stock markets.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) shed 112.85 points, or 1.51 percent, to close at 7,348.21, weighed down by bleak sentiment in Wall Street.

“It’s been a bad December for US stocks so far, falling by 4.5 percent already month-to-date. Last Friday we saw a steep 560-point (-2.2 percent) drop in the DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average) while the S&P500 closed with a death cross. The selloff may have been instigated by comments from White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who said the United States will go on ahead with tariff increases if a deal is not reached within 90 days,” local stockbrokerage Papa Securities said in a research note.

All counters ended in the red, led by the holding firm counter, which slid by 2.11 percent.

The financial, industrial, mining/oil and property counters all fell by more than 1 percent.

Total value turnover for the day amounted to P14.84 billion, bloated by P8.9 billion worth of block transaction on Melco Resorts Philippines related to a tender offer by its controlling shareholders. There was P3.96 billion in net foreign buying in the market.

There were 134 decliners that edged out 59 advancers while 43 stocks were unchanged.

The PSEi was weighed down most by the country’s leading conglomerate SM Investments, which tumbled by 4.26 percent.

BDO also lost 3.9 percent while SMC likewise slipped by 3.14 percent.