MANILA – The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) ended Thursday in the negative territory due to profit-taking but the peso ended the day sideways against the US dollar.
The local stock barometer slipped by 0.67 percent, or 49.83 points, to 7,369.27 points.
All Shares declined by 0.57 percent, or 22.27 points, to 3,913.27 points.
Most of the sectoral indexes also finished the day down and these include the Holding Firms, 1.12 percent; Financials, 0.75 percent; Services, 0.48 percent; and Property, 0.39 percent.
On the other hand, Mining and Oil index rose by 0.60 percent and Industrial by 0.11 percent.
Volume totaled 1.31 billion shares amounting to almost PHP8 billion.
Decliners surpassed advancers at 126 to 62, while 51 shares were unchanged.
“Philippine shares succumbed to profit-taking ahead of the US holiday and after the release of the recently published Fed’s minutes which showed that central bankers were open to speed up the tapering amid inflation worries,” said Luis Limlingan, Regina Capital Development Corporation (RCDC) head of sales.
Limlingan was referring to the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting last November 2 to 3.
During the meeting, US monetary authorities kept the Federal Reserve’s key rates at between zero to 0.25 percent.
FOMC also announced the start of the cuts in the Federal Reserve’s asset purchases starting late November 2021 at USD10 billion for Treasury securities and USD5 billion for agency mortgage-backed securities.
Meanwhile, the peso ended the day sideways against the US dollar at 50.39 from 50.34 a day ago.
It opened the trade at 50.35, better than its 50.57 start in the previous session.
It traded between 50.33 and 50.545, bringing the day’s average to 50.46.
Volume totaled to USD1.21 billion, higher than the previous session’s USD909.4 million. (PNA)
