PH stocks fall below 5,700 mark

LOCAL market lengthened its declining momentum as investors extended its profit-taking on the anticipation of the upcoming holidays.

Harry Liu, president of Summit Securities Inc., said in a phone interview that the extended correction in the market was only because of the anticipated long holidays, which pushed investors to go on profit- taking.

“We can expect support of 5,650 for the short term but towards the weekend, the index might improve again,” he added.

He also specified that the Monday’s correction could also be just a consolidation of ups and downs, unless any crisis would spur from regional markets such as in Europe, US and China.

Liu, however, said that for the long-term view, local market is still doing very good and investors can expect more developments as another year enters.

“We are anticipating an investment grade next year and that will be a fantastic improvement,” he said.

Economist Jonas Ravelas of BDO Unibank Inc., on the other hand, said that the profit-taking was caused by a local economic measure.

“Profit-taking continues as BSP [Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas] hints of new measure,” he specified.

Philippine Stock Exchange index fell 1. 46 percent, or 83.26 points to close at 5,623.85 points, while broader all shares index collapsed 1.30 percent, or 48.01 points to 3,640.37.

Financials counter posted the largest decline among all the subindices, decreasing 2.11 percent, or 32.26 points to 1,496.08, followed by the property index, which was down by 1.67 percent, or 37.50 points to 2,205.51.

Industrial, which was also in red, dropped 1.19 percent, or 103.74 points to close at 8,643.74, while holding firms closed at a negative 1.04 percent, or 52.09 points to 4,935.25.

Mining and oil, on the other hand, was flat at 0.98 percent, or 188.24 points to close at 19,013.61, while services counter was also in red at 0.93 percent, or 16.03 points to close at 1,703.11.

Market breadth was also positive with losers prevailing over gainers, 116 to 50 and the rest were unchanged.