Main index barely moves after three-day retreat

LOCAL EQUITIES hardly moved on Thursday, joining a region-wide weakness amid thin trades.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) snapped its three-day descent but was still relatively flat with a mere 4.01-point or 0.05% climb to a 7,876.66 finish, while the broader all-shares index edged up 6.83 points or 0.14% to close 4,714.57.

“The PSEi just exhibited the same behavior as yesterday (Wednesday) — run up early in the session followed by a decline,” RCBC Securities, Inc. analyst Jeffrey Lucero said in a mobile phone message.

“The local market may have been pulled down by most regional markets’ weakness.”

Weakness was evident across much of Asian yesterday, with South Korea’s KOSPI, Japan’s Nikkei 225 and TOPIX, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, the Shanghai-Shenzhen CSI 300 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 falling by 1.68%, 0.25%, 0.03%, 0.28%, 0.88% and 0.16%, respectively, although the MSCI AC Asia Pacific managed to edge up by a nearly flat 0.04%.

Wall Street, however, went the other direction, with the Dow Jones Industrial Averagage climbing 0.24% to a record-high 22,016.24 and the S&P 500 gaining 0.05% to 2,477.57, while the Nasdaq Composite was flat at 6,362.65.

While Wednesday saw PSEi’s six sectoral indices equally divided between winners and losers, four counters gained on Thursday, namely: industrial that increased by 50.51 points or 0.46% to close 11,025.92, financials that added 7.30 points or 0.37% to 1,965.55, services which edged up by 0.15 of a point or 0.009% to 1,657.75 and property which similarly inched up by 0.22 of a point or 0.006% to finish at 3,737.93.

On the other hand, mining and oil dropped 19.01 points or 0.14% to end 12,828.91, while holding firms dipped by 7.01 points or 0.09% to finish 7,820.90.

Nevertheless, shares that declined still outnumbered those that gained, 114 to 83, while 54 others were flat.

Trading volume thinned to 917.42 million shares worth P5.74 billion from Wednesday’s 1.16 billion issues worth P7.03 billion.

“Note that value turnover today was tepid at P5 billion,” RCBC Securities’ Mr. Lucero said, explaining that “investors may have stayed on the sidelines, waiting for more earnings results” of listed companies for the second quarter.

Regina Capital Development Corp. Managing Director Luis A. Limlingan shared this observation, noting that “Philippine shares traded on a lackluster note as investors continue to digest earnings and stay on the sidelines, as evident by reduced trading volumes.”

Thursday marked the second straight day of net foreign buying, which nevertheless fell nearly three-fourths to P135.67 million from Wednesday’s P500.83 million. — Arra B. Francia