Philippine bourse closes lower on profit-taking

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - The Philippine stock market gave in to profit takers today, pulling the index back to the 7,700 level.

The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 1.02 percent or 79.67 points to 7,764.39, while the broader all-share index slipped by 0.78 percent or 35.33 points to 4,510.69.

Trading volume reached 3.37 billion shares worth P9.86 billion ($224.39 million) with 105 stocks declining, 82 advancing, and 39 were unchanged.

Of the six counters, only the mining and oil sector bucked the trend.

"Possible breathers are seen given the bourse's ascent, especially as some players lock-in gains to re-allocate cash in promising stocks," online brokerage 2TradeAsia.com said in its daily stock market comment.

The online brokerage added that some investors are most likely to check on earnings indication from large-caps, apart from monitoring momentum improvement. Analyst Justino Calaycay of Accord Capital Equities Corp. advises investors to be more circumspect in selecting stocks.

"Principal candidates would naturally tend towards good companies with legitimate businesses that have generally been left out of the year's early and sustained surge, whilst keeping an eye on the top-liners as they return to more reasonable and bargain prices," he said.

Most of the stocks in the 30-company index were sold down. These include SM Investments Corp., Ayala Land, Inc., and the Bank of Philippine Islands.