MANILA – Bargain hunters reigned in the local bourse on Thursday resulting in the negative close of the main index, but the local currency finished sideways against the US dollar.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) shed 1.02 percent, or 76.22 points, to 7,382.77 points.
All Shares declined by 0.68 percent, or 26.87 points, to 3,906.20 points.
Property posted the biggest drop among the indices after it fell by 1.54 percent. It was trailed by Holding Firms, 1.49 percent; Industrial, 0.55 percent; Mining and Oil, 0.47 percent; Financials, 0.29 percent; and Services, 0.04 percent.
Volume reached 1.69 billion shares amounting to PHP6.75 billion.
Decliners led advancers at 115 to 83, while 57 shares were unchanged.
“Philippine shares succumbed to profit taking after testing previous high ahead of the January CPI (consumer price index) report, and PSEi rebalancing announcement,” said Luis Limlingan, Regina Capital Development Corporation (RCDC) head of sales.
Limlingan said “economic data in the US was weak as well”, with the employment report published by the Automatic Data Processing (ADP) Research Institute missing estimates after it fell by 301,000 last January, contrary to estimates of an additional 200,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, the peso closed the day at 51.05 from the previous session’s 51.045.
It opened the day at 51.00 and traded between 51.1 and 50.92.
Average level for the day stood at 51.041.
Volume reached USD1.052 billion, lower than the previous session’s USD1.187 billion. (PNA)
