Stocks remain weak as investors stay on sidelines

The stock market continued to trade sideways yesterday due to lack of catalysts and activities within and outside the country, analysts said.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index ended at 7,642.90, down by 4.61 points, while the broader All Shares index shed 6.56 points, or 0.14 percent, to finish at 4,648.11.

Luis Limlingan of Regina Capital said “the market closed slightly in the red with lack of activity from the US counterparts, which are still enjoying the long weekend and developments regarding the US and North Korea kept investors on the sidelines.”

“Right now, President Trump has confirmed that the summit with North Korean was proceeding again as planned, three days after it was abruptly called off. In addition, US markets slightly eased on Friday after Saudi Arabia and Russia signaled that they would likely ease their production cuts in the second half of the year. Comments by their energy ministers suggest that such a decision would be driven by concerns that high oil prices start to impact global economic activity and was spurred by pressure from the US and China to bring barrels back online. Oil prices have sold off on these comments,” he said.

The counters, meanwhile, were a mixed bag. Closing in the red were the services, industrial and property index while the financials, mining and oil and the holding firms indexes ended in positive territory.

Total value turnover was thin at P5.385 billion. Market breadth was negative, 129 to 74 while 38 issues were left unchanged.