Stock market ends three-day advance; PLDT leads gainers
STOCKS tumbled Friday to end a three-day advance on lingering worries over global economic recovery and banking sector uncertainty.
The PSE index, the 30-company benchmark of the Philippine Stock Exchange, shed 97 points, or 1.46 percent, to close at 6,578.15, as all six subsectors declined.
The index representing all shares also went down by 40 points, or 1.14 percent, to settle at 3,510.95 on a value turnover of P5.51 billion. Losers outmatched gainers, 105 to 62, while 54 issues were unchanged.
Only one of the 10 most active stocks ended in the green. PLDT Inc. rose 2.24 percent to P1,235.00.
Asian markets were mixed Friday as traders weighed a range of issues including US debt ceiling hopes and high-level talks between Washington and Beijing.
Investors hoping the Federal Reserve will finally take a breather from its longrunning campaign of interest rate hikes have been left feeling a little more confident this week after data showed inflation on both a consumer and wholesale level continued to ease in April.
Their hopes were given a further boost Thursday by news that jobless claims last week hit their highest since October 2021, suggesting the labor market was showing some slack.
The Fed has long said it needed to see a softening in employment as well as a drop in inflation before it could consider ending its rate hike drive and look at a potential cut in borrowing costs.
“US economic data overnight continued the theme of tentative signs of a softening labor market and room for optimism about the inflation outlook,” said National Australia Bank’s Taylor Nugent.
“Caution on one week’s claims number is always well advised, but the incremental signal looks to be a more compelling trend higher.”
There was also some positive news out of Washington that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi met in Vienna this week, as the superpowers seek to temper tensions over a number of issues, particularly Taiwan.
The eight hours of talks over Wednesday and Thursday also covered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and capped an unofficial pause in highlevel contact since the United States shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon earlier in the year.