PSEi reels from revived US-China trade jitters

SHARES stumbled on Tuesday as Beijing’s cancellation of trade talks with Washington triggered jitters across markets worldwide.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) gave up 1.36% or 101.44 points to close at 7,332.17 yesterday, snapping two days of gains for the market, while the broader all-shares index shed 0.8% or 36.62 points to 4,494.90.

“The market failed to sustain its gains, succumbing instead to profit taking on news that China pulled out of trade talks with the US,” RCBC Securities, Inc. said in a note attributed to research analyst John Paolo D. Ayson, citing index heavyweights SM Investments Corp. (-2.70%); SM Prime Holdings, Inc. (-3.51%); Ayala Land, Inc. (-2.57%); Bank of the Philippine Islands (-3.63%) and BDO Unibank, Inc. (-1.65%) as “the main culprits behind PSEi’s decline.”

“Today’s lack of enthusiasm may have drawn from a couple of factors. First off, US markets corrected last night as the latest tariffs took effect… Subsequently, MSCI EM retreated last night as well, correcting from its technical downtrend resistance after four days of closing in the green,” Papa Securities Corp. trader Gabriel Jose F. Perez said in an e-mail.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dumped 0.68% or 181.45 points to 26,562.05 while the S&P 500 index dipped 0.35% or 10.30 points to 2,919.37. In contrast, the Nasdaq Composite index added 0.08% or 6.29 points to 7,993.25. Among major Asian indices, only Japan’s Nikkei 225 and TOPIX climbed — by 0.29% and 1.02%, respectively. Hong Kong and South Korea’s bourses were closed for holidays. The Shanghai Composite Index, the Jakarta Composite Index and the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ended 0.58%, 0.16% and 0.23% lower.

“Philippine shares fell along with regional markets as global trade concerns and political dysfunction tested investor optimism,” Regina Capital Development Corp. Managing Director Luis A. Limlingan said in a mobile phone message.

Reports also quoted Chinese officials accusing the United States of “trade bullyism,” claiming that Washington has been intimidating other countries to submit to its will. The US and China both slapped a new round of tariffs on each other’s goods on Monday, with the former introducing new duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. In turn, China imposed tariffs on another $60 billion worth of US goods.

Locally, all six sectoral indices ended in the red. The property counter plunged 2.39% or 88.42 points to 3,599.81; financials lost 1.85% or 31.15 points to 1,649.81; services dropped 0.9% or 13.76 points to 1,504.08; holding firms slumped 0.48% or 35.08 points to 7,155.43; mining and oil slipped 0.4% or 36.94 points to 9,162.26; while industrials went down 0.37% or 41.98 points to 11,028.71.

Net foreign selling persisted, dropping 71.53% to P160.45 million from Monday’s P563.57 million.