Stock market tracks US losses, falls 0.26%

SHARE prices retreated on Thursday with the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) losing 0.26 percent or 22.48 points to close at 8,645.08.

The wider All Shares, however, rose by 0.17 percent or 8.59 points to end at 5,094.67.

“This is purely technical correction following the shoot- up in the past month. The market is trying to rally and it is trying to check the support level of 8,400,” Summit Securities, Inc. President Harry Liu said.

“If it can hold in the next few days, an aggressive rally is going to happen,” he added.

A Regina Capital Development Corp. analyst, meanwhile, said the local market had moved in line

with declines on Wall Street.

All main indexes were in the red on Wednesday with the Dow Jones down 0.08 percent and the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropping by 0.50 percent and 0.90 percent, respectively.

The PSEi, however, bucked a regional rise on Thursday that saw the Nikkei and Hang Seng indices up 1.13 percent and 0.43 percent, respectively.

The Regina Capital analyst also said that investors were awaiting the results of the Monetary Board’s

after the close that monetary authori- ties had decided to keep key interest to breach the 2.0-4.0 target this year.

Most sectoral indices were in the red except for property, which rose by 0.20 percent.

Over 1.02 billion issues valued at P7.1 billion changed hands.

Winners led losers, 107 to 92, while 60 issues were unchanged.