Phl stocks retreat amid China debacle

Philippine stocks retreated yesterday, joining other Asian bourse that slumped amid China’s stock market rout.

At the Philippine Stock Exchange, the benchmark index went down 68.41 points, or 0.90 percent, to settle at 7,479.03.

Value turnover reached P6.85 billion, as 2.1 billion shares changed hands. All counters were in the red, led by the 16.59 points slide of the financials sub-index.

Market breadth was negative, as decliners edged out advancers, 122 to 46, with 38 issues unchanged.

Joey Roxas, president of Eagle Equities attributed the decline to lingering concerns over the Chinese economy as seen in its weak stock market performance.

“The market is still weak in sympathy with China. Although, it’s funny why we should sympathize since China is still up 70 percent year-on-year,” Roxas said, referring to China’s stock market index.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ended the day 0.2 percent higher after falling nearly one percent early on, touching its lowest level since July 9. Tokyo’s Nikkei ended 0.1 percent lower. The main China indexes fell again, although by nowhere near as much as Monday’s 8.5 percent plunge. The Shanghai market benchmark closed 1.7 percent lower.

Since hitting a peak in early June, Chinese shares have gone through a roller-coaster ride with main indexes plummeting by a third in less than a month before rebounding by a quarter, only to then have their biggest one-day fall since 2007 on Monday.