Local stocks continue to weaken

The local stock barometer sank to the 7,500 level on Wednesday, missing a regional rebound, as investors digested the final stream of local corporate earnings reports.

Weakening for the fourth straight session, the main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) shed 69.95 points or 0.92 percent to close at 7,576.71.

The local market was dragged down by about P1.16 billion worth of net foreign selling as the first-quarter corporate earnings reporting season ended.

The day’s decline was led by the industrial and property counters, which respectively slid by 1.36 percent and 1.93 percent.

Only the mining/oil counter ended in the green, rising by 1.6 percent.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P7.23 billion. There were 98 decliners that edged out 92 advancers while 52 companies were unchanged.

The PSEi was weighed down most by Jollibee and DMCI, which both tumbled by more than 3 percent.

Jollibee, the day’s most actively traded company, reported a 14.7-percent drop in attributable first-quarter net profit to P1.53 billion due to losses incurred by American subsidiary Smashburger.

SM Prime and URC also slipped by more than 2 percent, while Ayala Land, SM Investments, Metrobank, PLDT, Meralco and Megaworld all fell by over 1 percent.

BPI and Globe Telecom also slipped.

Notable decliners outside the PSEi included Premiere Horizon, which lost 5.05 percent, while Holcim fell by 4.27 percent.

On the other hand, Bloomberry gained 5.58 percent while sister firm ICTSI added 3.89 percent.

BDO Unibank gained 1 percent while San Miguel Corp., which recently won the bid to take over market-leading cement-maker Holcim Philippines, rose by 1.96 percent.

In the latest MSCI rebalancing, Semirara was added to the small cap index while Century Pacific Foods was deleted.