PH stock prices fall amid fears over inflation in China

MANILA, Philippines—Most local stock prices faltered on Thursday as a higher-than-expected China inflation rate for January spooked regional equity markets and induced profit-taking.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index shed 36.18 points or 0.75 percent to finish at 4,769.62.

Tycoon Henry Sy’s shopping mall arm SM Prime Holdings Inc. bucked the day’s downturn, aiding the property counter, as news of a prospective SM group takeover of a majority stake in the Ortigas property group was seen benefiting the company.  The crown jewel of the Ortigas property group is the 16-hectare Greenhills shopping complex, where SM group is now leasing some retail space.

The mining/oil counter was the most battered for the day, declining by 3.7 percent.  The financial, holding firms and services counters all declined by over 1 percent.

Turnover amounted to P8.58 billion.  There were only 42 advancers against 134 decliners, while 33 stocks were unchanged.

Apart from the property counter, the industrial counter also managed to eke out marginal gains for the day.

Among the index decliners for the day were EDC, Metrobank, Megaworld, Aboitiz Power, PLDT, SM Investments, AGI, AEV, BDO, Semirara and AC.  The non-PSEi stocks that declined in heavy volume for the day were Lepanto A (open only to local investors), Security Bank, Manila Mining A and Petron.

Aside from SM Prime, URC and ICTSI helped temper the PSEi’s decline for the day.  Other non-index stocks that gained in heavy volume were NiHao and United Paragon.

Frances Cheung, senior strategist at Credit Agricole CIB, said in a research note on Thursday that “sentiment was subdued in Asian trading overnight, with the surprisingly high China CPI (consumer price index) pressuring Asian currencies and equities.”

China’s inflation rate unexpectedly accelerated to 4.5 percent year-on-year from 4.1 percent which Cheung said underscored the Chinese central bank’s reluctance to cut reserve requirement further and withdraw liquidity via reverse repurchase deals.