MANILA – Geopolitical concerns overseas continued to hurt the local stock barometer and resulted in its negative close on Wednesday but the peso gained against the US dollar.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) lost 1.03 percent, or 76.7 points, to 7,364.21 points.
All Shares dropped by 0.52 percent, or 20.65 points, to 3,917.86 points.
Most of the sectoral indices also tracked the main gauge with Property declining 2.17 percent; Holding Firms, 0.78 percent; Industrial, 0.75 percent; and Financials, 0.53 percent.
On the other hand, Services gained 0.23 percent and Mining and Oil by 0.12 percent.
Volume reached 1.2 billion shares amounting to PHP7.78 billion.
Decliners led advancers at 93 to 86, while 67 shares were unchanged.
“Philippine shares fell upon resumption of trading still due to the intensifying Ukraine-Russia geopolitical tensions,” said Luis Limlingan, Regina Capital Development Corporation (RCDC) head of sales.
Following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to deploy troops to two breakaway Eastern Ukraine regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, after recognizing them as independent regions on Monday, US President Joe Biden announced sanctions on Russian bank VEB and its military bank, Promsvyazbank; Russia’s sovereign debt, and some wealthy individuals.
The UK announced its first set of sanctions against Russia and these include freezing of assets of five banks namely Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank, and Black Sea Bank, as well as sanctions on three high net individuals namely Gennady Timchenko, Boris Rotenberg, and Igor Rotenberg.
Amidst these developments, the local currency finished the day at 51.1 against the US dollar, better than its 51.45 close a day ago.
It opened the day at 51.35 and traded between 51.36 and 51.1.
The average level for the day stood at 51.27.
Volume reached USD934.2 million, higher than the USD782.4 million. (PNA)
