Philippine stocks close lower

MANILA, Philippines—The main local stock index dipped on Monday, reversing early session gains, as jitters over global growth earnings soured trading across the region.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index shed 7.74 points, or 0.14 percent, to close at 5,397.42 despite news of a fresh sovereign credit-rating upgrade by Moody’s.

This developed as sentiment across the region was dampened by concerns over corporate earnings as the global economy continued to falter. Weak sentiment in developed markets is likewise weighing down regional markets. “The week kicked off in a sour mood amid the lingering eurozone crisis and political uncertainty surrounding the US presidential election,” said BoFA Merrill Lynch.

The most battered counter for the day was mining/oil. The financial, holding firm and service counters also closed lower while the industrial and property sub-indices managed to post modest gains. Value turnover for the day amounted to P5.2 billion. There were 81 advancers, which were outnumbered by 86 decliners, while 43 stocks were unchanged.

Investors continued to shy away from large caps, focusing instead on third-liner stocks.

The index was weighed down by the decline of PLDT, SMIC, Metrobank, MPI and AP. Outside the index stocks, newly listed Coal Asia and Security Bank fell on profit-taking. The PSEi’s decline was tempered by the gains of ALI, AGI, URC, Megaworld, BPI, SM Prime and Ayala.

The day’s outperformers were non-index stocks like EVER (+49.06 percent), Boulevard (+31.21 percent) and Vitarich (+5.67 percent). Boulevard disclosed Monday the issuance of 466.85 million shares to holding firm JP Guilds at P0.21 pursuant to its capital increase to P1.2 billion from P800,000.—Doris C. Dumlao