Philippine bourse close lower on region-wide slump

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - The Philippine stock market remain defiant to any possible correction given latest ascent and made a new intraday high at 7736.97 before caving in to selling pressure.

The local barometer Philippine Stock Exchange index finished off today's session down by 0.57 percent or 43.88 points as a result of the profit taking after the market breached the 7,700 level. The broader all-share index was also down by 0.62 percent or 27.62 points to 4,427.16.

Trading volume reached 2.93 billion shares worth P13.05 billion ($295.95 million) with 116 stocks declining, 65 advancing, and 43 unchanged.

Of the six counters, only the financial sector bucked the trend.

"The market's defiance soon enough caved in by the weight of a region-wide slump even after the government reported a better-than- expected economic growth," analyst Justino Calaycay of Accord Capital Equities Corp. said in his daily stock market comment.

The country's National Economic Development Authority reported that the economy grew by 6.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014, pushing the full year average to 6.1 percent, 0.4 percentage point below the end of the targeted band.

"The PSEI has risen in the previous four days aggregating gains of 244.87 points or 3.3 percent. It has posted daily gains in six of the first 16 sessions of the year so far. And the losses being sustained today doesn't really count much for correction-watchers, " he said.

The afternoon session saw the bears coming back and retaking the gains even as value turnover slackened off the morning's pace.

At the close, the bears held sway, pulling the measure 43 points lower snapping a four session run.  

Nevertheless, the ability of the local composite index to stay above the 7600 level - the first psychological support, leave the short-term uptrend intact still, Calaycay said.

Stocks in the 30-company index closed mixed. Issues that were sold down were heavyweight Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and Ayala Land Inc. On the other hand, investors picked up SM Investments Corp. and Security Bank Corp. shares.