PSEi falls back below 7,400 amid lack of leads

STOCK PRICES slumped below 7,400 on Thursday amid thin trading, as investors stayed on the sidelines due to lack of leads.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index ( PSEi) gave up 63.50 points or 0.85% to close at 7,387.87, reversing the preceding session’s gains to a one- month peak, while the broader all-shares index lost 30.07 points or 0.66% to finish at 4,462.44.

“After reaching a one-month high yesterday, the Philippine market succumbed to profit taking today and traded in negative territory for almost the entire session,” RCBC Securities, Inc. said in a note prepared by research analyst John Paolo D. Ayson.

Sought for comment, IB Gimenez Securities, Inc. Research Head Joylin F. Telagen said in a text message: “I’m waiting for market catalyst to bring back the action to at least yearto-date average volume or more. And I don’t expect much market demand until earnings start to trickle in the next few weeks.”

Services were the lone subindex that stayed afloat, albeit with a mere 0.02% increase or 0.40 of a point to finish at 1,451.16.

The other five sectoral indices declined: holding firms by 1.49% or 109.38 points to 7,197.93; mining and oil by 0.76% or 74.30 points to 9,665.99; property by 0.62% or 22.60 points to 3,622.38; financials by 0.46% or 8.49 points to 1,826.48; and industrials by 0.21% or 22.29 points to 10,528.20.

Some 672.724 million issues worth P3.69 billion changed hands, compared to Wednesday’s 1.24 billion shares worth P4.25 billion.

Stocks that declined outnumbered those that gained 117 to 72, while 46 others were unchanged.

Foreigners reverted to selling mode, ending Thursday with P580.19-million net sales against Wednesday’s net purchases of P203.79 million. Papa Securities Corp. attributed Wednesdays’ net foreign buying to a large block of Xurpas, Inc. shares worth P418 million that were bought by investors offshore. Without this, foreign investors would have posted net sales of P214.3 million that day. “Net foreign selling remains as a looming figure over the PSEi especially with today’s figure. Let’s see if the aforementioned resistance level will still prove to be too tough to overcome in the coming days,” Papa Securities trader Gabriel Jose F. Perez said in an e-mail.

Thirteen of Thursday’s 20 most active stocks declined, including Ayala Corp. (down 2.96% to P950 apiece); Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company (0.36% to P69.50); SM Investments Corp. ( 1.1% to P900); and GT Capital Holdings, Inc. (4.13% to P929).

The same list showed only five stocks in positive territory including third telco aspirants Transpacific Broadband Group Int’l., Inc., which jumped 5.88% to 54 centavos apiece, and EasyCall Communications Philippines, Inc. that surged 18.61% to P32.50.

Megawide Construction Corp. gained 1.18% to P17.20 after falling by 6.59% on Wednesday.