Philippine stock prices fall in profit taking

MANILA, Philippines—The main local stock index pulled back from all-time highs on Wednesday as most equities succumbed to profit-taking.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index gave up 40.86 points or 0.92 percent to finish at 4,398.75, reflecting the cautious mood as Wall Street reopened overnight. The euphoria over Greece’s debt restructuring was replaced by concerns over Moody’s downgrading of Portugal’s government debt that reminded investors of lingering fiscal woes in the Euro-zone.

Financial and holding firm counters weighed down the local index the most, respectively declining by over 1 percent. Only the industrial counter managed to end in positive territory albeit gains were marginal.

Turnover thinned to P4.8 billion from Tuesday’s P7 billion. There were 64 gainers, which were beaten by 79 decliners, while 38 stocks were unchanged.

Overnight, Wall Street reopened with a cautious note after last week’s rallies. This was after Moody’s downgraded Portugal’s sovereign debt rating by a notch as the rating firm flagged risks of a second rescue package due potential risk of failure to meet debt reduction targets.

The most actively traded stocks were non-index issues San Miguel Corp. and Petron, which spiked by 2.3 percent and 7.89 percent, respectively, defying the day’s downturn. There is rising expectation that Petron will undertake a secondary equity offering very soon to comply with the PSE’s 10-percent minimum public float requirement.

On the other hand, the index was dragged down by selling on JFC, AGI, Metrobank, Ayala Land, PLDT, BPI, Megaworld, Lepanto “A” (reserved for local investors) and RLC. Semirara also traded in the red.

The decline of the index was tempered by gains eked out by ICTSI, URC and Globe Telecom. Non-index stocks Atlas Mining and Global-Estate Resorts also gained in active trade.