PSEi slips after 4-day rally

pse.com.ph photo

MANILA, Philippines—After a four-day run-up, the local stock index lost some ground Wednesday as investors reassessed recent gains.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index gave up 15.43 points or 0.23 percent to close at 6,769.52.

Dealers said the decline was due to a technical correction after the 195-point surge of the last four days.   But they said interest remained strong among foreign investors, resulting in strong net foreign buying since mid-February.

The financial, industrial, services and property counters ended lower while holding firms and mining/oil posted modest gains.

Turnover amounted to P7.12 billion.

There were 98 advancers against  86 decliners while 36 stocks were unchanged.

Petron (-2.03 percent) and Metrobank (-1.22 percent) led the PSEi’s decline while PLDT, ALI, LTG, Megaworld, SMIC, MPI, JG Summit and BDO also contributed to the slump.

On the other hand, gains by AGI (+1.83 percent) and DMCI (+1.45 percent) helped temper the PSEi’s dip.  SM Prime, GTCAP and URC also gained.

Outside of the main index, Security Bank (+0.27 percent), Nickel Asia (+0.83 percent) and Vista Land (+1.28 percent) crept higher.

Vista Land obtained consent from holders of $103 million out of $150 million bonds that the company wants to redeem ahead of maturity to be able to refinance debts at longer maturity and lower cost.