PSEi falls 1.77%, closes below 6,400 mark

The local stock barometer on Monday fell below the 6,400 mark as the slump in oil prices escalated global growth woes.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 114.41 points or 1.77 percent to close at 6,335.09.

All counters were in the red. The day’s decline was led by the property counter, which slid by 2.42 percent while financial, industrial, holding firm and services counters declined by over 1 percent.

“The sell-off is due to many factors, including weak commodity prices, concerns on how it will impact overseas Filipino remittances, US Federal Reserve rate hike, the strong dollar and weak peso, weak developing market economies, contagion etc,” said COL Financial head of research April Lee-Tan.

Value turnover for the day was P5.58 billion. There were three decliners for every single gainer.

Megaworld and parent firm AGI led the day’s PSEi decliners, both sliding by more than 4 percent. AC and DMCI fell by over 3 percent.

URC, ALI, SM Prime, BDO, Metrobank and JG Summit slipped by over 2 percent. Globe, BPI and Jollibee also contributed to the decline.

Outside of the PSEi, RRHI (-3.83 percent) was also heavily battered.

MPI bucked the day’s downturn with a modest gain of 0.78 percent.

Non-PSEi stock Security Bank rose by 2.87 percent as investors factored in the favorable impact of the entry of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi as a new investor.Doris Dumlao-Abadilla