Philippine Stocks Slumped, Closed at 6,244.74 on Tuesday

On Tuesday, the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) closed at 6,244.74 after slumping 38.84 points or 0.61%. The all shares index, on the other hand, closed at 3,847.39 equating to a loss of 14.02 points or 0.36%.

The emergence of new and more infectious coronavirus variants has clouded market sentiments and pushed foreign investors out of the market. The Department of Health identified 10 more cases of the B.1.617 variant first reported in India, bringing the total to 12 on Saturday.

“After two straight trading days of staging a last-minute comeback, the local market finally gave in completely to selling pressures… on the back of the entry of the coronavirus variant from India in the Philippines,” said Japhet Louis O. Tantiangco, senior research analyst at Philstocks Financial, Inc.

Tantiangco explained that trading volume has seen an improvement but it was still “lethargic… in comparison to the year-to-date average of P8.12 billion.”

Value turnover was inched upwards to ₱6.19 billion with 2.63 billion shares traded on Tuesday from the ₱5.02 billion with 2.31 billion shares traded on Monday.

The PSEi closed lower on Tuesday “as selling from foreign funds continued,” said China Bank Securities Corp. research associate Zoren Philip A. Musngi.

“Bullish investor sentiment remains elusive despite signs of recovery in corporate earnings for [the first quarter], better remittances data, continuing improvement in the domestic COVID-19 situation, and ramp-up in vaccination efforts,” Musngi explained.

Services closed at 1,464.15 after an improvement of 23.03 points or 1.59%. Mining and oil also ended in the green at 9,183.81 gaining 88.28 points or 0.97%. Aside from these, most sectoral indices closed in the red.

Decliners beat advancers, 139 against 70, while 50 names closed unchanged. Net foreign selling increased to ₱549.72 million on Tuesday from the ₱354.07 million logged on Monday.

Source: Business World