The local stock barometer shied away from the 7,000 territory on Monday, tracking cautious regional markets ahead of the US Federal Reserve meeting later this week.
The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) fell by 54.95 points, or 0.8 percent, to close at 6,857.90 as investors lacked fresh incentives to load up on stocks.
“Philippine shares were off to a slow start [on] Monday as no economic data releases are on the schedule here and in the US. However, housing and jobs data will be out by Sept. 21 and 22, respectively,” said Luis Gerardo Limlingan, managing director at Regina Capital Development.
The Federal Open Market Committee is also set to hold a two-day meeting on Sept. 21-22. Its monetary policy stance will be announced on Sept. 23.
“The investors have been anticipating this meeting as the market expects it would give more color on the timing of the Fed’s planned scaling back of its asset purchases. Back home, investors are also waiting for the Monetary Board’s meeting on Sept. 23,” Limlingan added.
The P15.3-billion initial public offering of Megaworld-sponsored real estate investment trust (MREIT) also siphoned off some liquidity from the market. The retail offering ended on Monday, while the listing of the shares is scheduled on Sept. 30.
The mining/oil subindex was the most battered counter, losing 2.64 percent.
The financial, industrial and property counters all shed over 1 percent.On the other hand, the services counter added 0.51 percent.
Value turnover for the day amounted to P7.23 billion. There was modest net foreign selling of P30 million.
There were 165 decliners that overwhelmed 42 advancers, while 36 stocks were unchanged.
AGI was the day’s biggest decliner among PSEi stocks after losing 5.19 percent.
Puregold shed 2.26 percent, while JG Summit, Ayala Corp., Jollibee and Ayala Land fell by over 1 percent.Converge and Globe Telecom both slipped by less than 1 percent.
Notable decliners outside the PSEi included DMCI (-3.25 percent), Monde Nissin (-1.03 percent) and Wilcon (-1.06 percent).
On the other hand, LTG rose by 4.16 percent, while PLDT and Aboitiz Power both added over 2 percent.