Stocks retreat on lack of fresh leads

The stock market retreated yesterday, shedding 3.42 points, or 0.04 percent, to end at 8,361.69 as investors opted to stay on the sidelines due to the absence of market moving news.

Likewise, the broader All Shares index ended in the red, closing 0.80 points lower at 4,888.32.

Justino Calaycay of Philstocks Financials Inc. said “share prices sustained a beating yesterday, kicking off the final week of November trades – shortened by a Thursday holiday – on a dour note.”

He said the selloff was broad-based with all sectors recording a decline ranging from 0.28 percent for the property sector to as much as 0.27 percent for the holding firms.

Among the sectoral indexes, the financials and industrial indexes also lost ground, closing in the red as well.

Total value turnover, mean- while, reached P6.35 billion. Market breadth was negative, 102 to 96 while 46 issues were left unchanged.

Calaycay said all is not lost because there is optimism heading into December, coupled with the mild month-end window dressing which may give investors enough boost to shovel back and reinvest funds.

“Value flows was relatively light hitting less than P5 billion inclusive of over P800 million worth of block sales, before the bulls rained P2 billion more toward the end.” he said.