PH stock prices fall in profit taking

MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE) Local stock prices pulled back sharply on Thursday as many investors decided to pocket gains as the main index neared record highs.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 42.49 points or 0.98 percent to finish at 4,278.83. It broke down a support level at 4,300 as investors dumped financial, holding firms and property stocks.

“The market is cooling off a bit, as it has been overbought for a while. We’re due for a correction as there are bearish divergences in the technical indicators that we use,” said PNB Securities deputy head Manuel Lisbona.

Jose Mari Lacson, head of research at Campos Lanuza & Co., said the local market had delinked from trends on Wall Street at least for this week as technical readings prevailed. He said the market was ripe for profit-taking as many stocks had reached overbought levels since last week.

Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Index was up by 95.59 points or 0.76 percent to 12,690.96 following an optimistic economic outlook painted by the US Federal Reserve. Fed chair Ben Bernanke, who spoke in a rare news conference, also announced the end by June this year of its $600-million bond buy-back program.

As the US Fed announced the end of its quantitative easing in monetary policy, the financial, holding firm and property counters led the day’s decline, falling by 1.3 percent, 1.58 percent and 1.54 percent, respectively. Only the mining/oil counter bucked the downturn due to gains eked out by Lepanto and Semirara.

Turnover thinned to P4.78 billion from nearly P6.76 billion in the previous day.

Despite the overall index decline, foreign investor confidence was high as suggested by P696 million in net foreign buying at the stock market.

Advancers were outnumbered by decliners 50-83 while 39 stocks were unchanged.

DMCI, ICTSI, PLDT, First Gen, Megaworld, Metrobank, URC, Metro Pacific Investments, Jollibee, FPH, SM Prime and BDO led the PSEi lower while non-index stock Lopez Holdings also succumbed to profit-taking.

On the other hand, gains by AGI, EDC, Aboitiz Power and Lepanto tempered the overall index decline. Gaming stock Leisure & Resorts also gained in heavy trade while Philex was unchanged.

Meanwhile, the PSE lifted the trading suspension on Alliance Select Foods International following the disclosure of additional information on its acquisition of a US salmon processing company. Alliance shares were up by 4.27 percent to P1.71 per share.