Beleaguered water concessionaire Manila Water rebounded by 13.14 percent on Thursday, bucking the overall decline in the index, on signals that the water contracts would not be revoked as what President Duterte earlier threatened to do so.
This was even as the main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) slumped by 79.73 points or 1.03 percent to close at 7,653.94 on heavy foreign selling.
MWC is not part of the local stock barometer. Despite the rebound in the past two trading days, its closing price of P7.75 was still much lower than the P18.98 finish on Dec. 2 before Mr. Duterte expressed his wrath over MWC and fellow concessionaire Maynilad Water Services Inc.
At the local market, all counters ended in the red, led by the financial, industrial and holding firm counters.
Papa Securities said water-related stocks had taken a breather following some assurance that their concessions won’t just be yanked away. “We think recovery should still continue as the market was already beginning to price in a complete loss of water assets beyond 2022,” the brokerage said.
On the decline of banking stocks, Papa Securities said that while the WestPac scandal could sour sentiment, “the repercussions are unlikely to be of the same magnitude as the RCBC/Bank of Bangladesh case.” “After all, the BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) itself noted that the funds involved were less than the Anti Money laundering Council’s mininum (reporting trigger) of P500,000, making it difficult to blame banks’ KYC (know-your-customer) practices,” it said.
Value turnover was heavy at P12.6 billion. Despite the PSE’s decline, the market was bludgeoned by about P2 billion worth of net foreign selling.
There were 102 decliners that overwhelmed 67 advancers, while 63 stocks were unchanged.
Among the key PSEi decliners was Jollibee, which lost 4 percent, while Security Bank fell by 3.11 percent.
ICTSI, BDO and Metro Pacific all declined by over 2 percent while SM Investments fell by nearly 2 percent.
JG Summit, GT Capital and URC slipped by over 1 percent. Ayala Land, Ayala Corp., AGI, PLDT, Metrobank and AEV also faltered.
On the other hand, DMCI, Metro Pacific’s partner in the other water concessionaire Maynilad Water Services, also gained 9.11 percent.
BPI and Megaworld also slightly firmed up.