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Local markets weaken on global trade concerns

By Joann Villanueva

August 5, 2019, 8:47 pm

MANILA -- Trade concerns continued to cast a dark shadow over both the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) and the peso Monday.

The local equities gauge declined 2.95 percent, or 239.91 points, to 7,890.02 points.

“Philippine shares wiped out substantial gains from the previous month as President Donald Trump stoked US-China trade fears with the announcement of more tariffs while investors digested U. S. employment data,” Regina Capital Managing Director Luis Limlingan said.

Reports said about 164,000 jobs were created last July, near the 165,000 projected by the market.

The negative close of the main index was followed by most of the counters, with the All Shares down by 2.14 percent, or 105.45 points, to 4,821.11 points.

Property posted the highest decline among the sectors with 3.46 percent, and was followed by the Industrial, 2.58 percent; Holding Firms, 2.57 percent; Financials, 2.52 percent; and Services, 1.81 percent.

Only the Mining and Oil ended the day with gains after it rose 1.16 percent. Volume reached 964.96 million shares amounting to PHP6.4 billion shares.

Losers led gainers at 149 to 55 while 47 shares were unchanged.

Relatively, the peso ended the day at 51.79 from 51.43 Friday last week.

It opened the day at 51.6, weaker than its 51.32 start in the previous session. It traded between 51.55 and 51.85, resulting to an average of 51.75.

Volume reached USD1.39 billion, higher than the previous session’s USD1.27 billion. (PNA)

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