Philippine stocks continue to slide

Image from pse.com.ph

MANILA, Philippines—The local stock market tumbled for a fifth straight session on Thursday as weaker global growth prospects and a credit downgrade on Spain soured sentiment across regional markets.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index shed 16.13 points, or 0.30 percent, to close at 5,353.47.

Large-cap stocks PLDT (-0.95 percent), SM Investments (-1.7 percent), MPI (-2.4 percent), BPI (-0.77 percent), AC (-0.98 percent) and ICTSI (-1.1 percent) weighed the index down alongside Metrobank, BDO, AP and EDC.

On the other hand, Philex shares rebounded by 5.38 percent as the company mapped out options on how to resume operations at Padcal mine site in Benguet.

Gains by ALI, SM Prime, AGI, Petron and Megaworld also tempered PSEi’s decline.

Some non-index stocks also attracted interest from the market such as IP-Egame (+2.56 percent), Greenergy (+17.65 percent) and Bloomberry (+2.76 percent).

Value turnover amounted to P5.58 billion. There were 74 advancers which were outnumbered by 81 decliners.

Metrobank, in its daily commentary, said the drop in US equities overnight was expected to weigh down the local bourse. It noted that Wall Street had also logged four straight days of losses on worries over the looming eurozone debt crisis and concerns about a global growth slowdown.

“On the US economic front, the Fed beige book said consumer spending, prices, and employment conditions have changed little, but reported that the overall economy expanded modestly. Elsewhere, S&P downgraded Spain’s long-term credit rating to one notch above junk status to BBB- from BBB+ and maintained its negative outlook for the country,” the bank said.

At the local market, Metrobank said that “while market corrections are expected, buying on dips is still preferred.”