Stocks end lower on fears of China slowdown

Local share prices ended in the red Friday but failed to erase the gains made earlier in the week that, in turn, was driven by increased appetite for Philippine issues following the release of better-than-expected growth data.

Data released by the government on Thursday showed that the Philippine economy grew 6.4 percent in the first quarter of the year—the fastest in Asia—driving local shares up 1.45 percent.

On Friday, however, bad news from overseas finally caught up with local investors as the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) slumped 0.56 percent or 28.79 points to close at 5,062.44 points.

The broader all-shares index was down 0.33 percent. The day’s 72 advancers were outnumbered by 88 decliners, while 36 issues were unchanged.

Trading volume was modest at 1.89 billion shares changing hands at P6.22 billion.

This was in line with the drop in Asian shares following grim forecasts on China’s economy—the region’s main growth driver. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 9.8 percent—the most since Lehman Brother’s collapse in 2008.

Subsectors were mixed, with holding firms losing the most at 1 percent. Financial and industrial companies were both down around 0.6 percent. Meanwhile, the property and services sector both improved by 0.4 percent. The day’s biggest gainer, however, was the mining and oil sector, rising 0.6 percent at the end of trading. Paolo G. Montecillo