Philippine market tumbles

https://www2.pse.com.ph/ photo

MANILA, Philippines—Local stocks tumbled on Friday, reversing the recovery in the morning session, as investors were spooked by the large trading loss reported by the largest American bank JP Morgan Chase.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) shed 33.9 points, or 0.65 percent, to finish at 5,158.14.

Joseph Roxas, president of Eagle Equities, said the market was expecting a bloodbath on Wall Street in the next session in reaction to the $2-billion trading loss from a failed hedging strategy. He said this was announced late in the previous US trading session and had yet to be digested by the markets.

The PSEi thus slipped back below 5,200 in afternoon trading as US futures indices turned sour.

At the same time, concerns on weak economic data in China and lingering uncertainties in the euro zone also dampened trading sentiment across the region.

The hardest hit counters were the financial, property and mining/oil counters, which respectively slid by 1.22 percent, 1.89 percent and 3.02 percent.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P6.07 billion. There were only 52 advancers which were edged out by 130 decliners while 26 stocks were unchanged.

AGI, PLDT, Metrobank, SM Prime, DMCI, MPI, AP, Megaworld and JG Summit weighed down the main index. The non-index stocks that ended in the red in heavy volume were Bloomberry, Security Bank and Philodrill.

On the other hand, the index stocks that bucked the downturn were SMIC, URC, ICTSI, EDC, AEV and AC. Union Bank also gained in heavy volume.

Meanwhile, Rockwell Land, which listed by way of introduction on Friday, saw its shares surging by 235.6 percent to P4.90 per share. The Lopez-led property developer listed all of its 6.23 billion shares at P1.46 per share.