The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index shed 25.3 points, or 0.47 percent, to finish at 5,369.60. The index was slightly up in morning trade on fresh Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas monetary easing expectations but fell sharply in the afternoon in line with the regional downtrend.
Stock market veteran Wilson Sy, a director at Philequity Management Inc., said the day’s decline was due to the correction of large-cap stocks like PLDT (-0.22 percent) and SMIC (-2.58 percent).
Sy said this was in line with the weak markets elsewhere in the region. He also cited news about the decline in the country’s export earnings for August, in turn due to softer demand for electronics.
Philippine exports declined by 9 percent year on year to $3.8 billion.
Other index stocks that weighed down the index were AC (-1.38 percent), Petron (-0.18 percent), Megaworld (-1.69 percent), BPI (-0.38 percent), JFC (-1.92 percent), Globe (-0.8 percent) and EDC (-0.96 percent).
All counters were in the red except for the financial counter, which bounced after its decline in recent days.
The day’s losses were tempered by the gains of AGI (+2.06 percent), Meralco (+2.48 percent), Metrobank (+1.33 percent), BDO (+0.16 percent) and SM Prime (+0.43 percent).
Value turnover amounted to P7 billion. There were 66 advancers, which were edged out by 84 decliners, while 56 stocks were unchanged.
Among non-index stocks, the outperformers were APM (+10.71 percent), Security Bank (+2.5 percent) and Bloomberry (+2.66 percent).