PSEi continues to weaken

Most local stocks tumbled for a third straight session Friday on profit-taking, giving up some gains after recently hitting 10-month highs.

The local stock barometer lost 46.23 points or 0.69 percent to close at 6,685.10.

“This is good. I’d like to see the market come off a bit more,” said Gus Cosio, president of First Metro Asset Management Inc.

For the week, the main index was up by 13.92 points or 0.2 percent compared to the 6,671.18 closing during last week’s three-day Lenten trading week.

By counter, the decline Friday was led by the mining/oil counter (-1.36 percent). The share price of Marcventures, which has a 2.88-percent weight on this sub-index, fell by 19.62 percent on news of a suspension order on its Surigao mining operations. (See story on this page.)

Only the services counter was up.

Value turnover was thin at P6.6 billion. There were 67

advancers, which were overwhelmed by 103 decliners, while 41 stocks were unchanged.

Among PSEi stocks, Jollibee fell 2.71 percent while Metrobank, Meralco, SM Prime, BDO, Petron and ICTSI lost more than 1 percent. SM Investments, URC and Ayala Land also contributed to the day’s decline.

On the other hand, the PSEi companies that bucked the day’s decline were Ayala Corp., Megaworld and GT Capital.

Outside of PSEi, gainers were Melco and Nickel Asia. Doris C. Dumlao