Trades subdued as inflation concerns linger

The local stock market remained weak yesterday, ignoring the upswing in regional markets due to lingering concerns on inflation, traders said.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) shed 15.78 points, or 0.18 percent, to to finish at 8,487.91.

The broader All Shares index was also down by 2.48 points, or 0.04 percent, to settle at 5,025.00.

Most sectoral indexes were down except for the financials index.

Total value turnover reached P5.86 billion.

Commenting on yesterday’s session, Papa Securities Corp. research heard Ramon Vicente Kabigting said the market bucked the upswing in regional markets due to lingering inflationary concerns.

“The index fell at the open to a low of 8,460.56 and breached below 8,500 before the midday break. It managed to eke out some intraday gains as it closed at 8,487.91. Negative market sentiment continues from uncertainty amid wide swings in the US markets. This is in contrast with most Asian markets that rebounded today (yesterday). We attribute this to lingering inflationary concerns as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has revised its inflation target to 4.3 percent from 3.4 percent previously,” Kabigting said.

Foreign selling also continued, he said.

“Likewise, we saw renewed net foreign selling today (yesterday) of P1.3 billion even as the selling the past few days had already started to decline, probably on the back of continued volatility in the market,” Kabigting said.