Local stocks tumble amid Wall Street crash

MANILA, Philippines — Share prices suffered heavily yesterday with the Philippine Stock Exchange index spiralling down below the 7,000 mark again.

The market joined the global rout that started in Wall Street before spilling over across global equities. Not surprisingly, with foreign fund managers dominating Philippine equities, the local stock market was not spared.

Thus, the PSEi finished at 6,966.84, down 162.58 points or 2.28 percent. It is the lowest close since Oct. 15 when the index finished at t 6,926.51.

Likewise, the broader All Shares gauge was down 81.07 points or 1.85 percent to finish at 4,281.24.

All the counters were also in the red, marking yet another bloody day for the market.

Total value turnover was thin at P5.499 billion and market breadth was sharply negative, 146 to 38 in favor of decliners. Thirty four issues were unchanged.

Foreign fund managers continued to dump shares, bringing net foreign selling to P1.12 billion and marking the 41st consecutive day of net foreign selling.

Traders were one in saying that yesterday’s session reflected the plunge in Wall Street.

They said that pessimism from US markets brought about by gloomy corporate earnings and economic growth outlook caused the global stock market rout.

“It’s because the Dow Jones and Nasdaq are down 2.4 percent and 4.4 percent, respectively,” said Ed Francisco, president of BDO Capital & Investment Corp.

Piper Chaucer Tan of Philstocks Financials echoed the same view.

 “The onslaught is mainly brought by the US market sell-off. The Dow Jones, S&P and Nasdaq have recently entered correction territory followed by Asian markets as well. This is brought about by weaker sales of houses and mixed earnings results,” Tan said.

All these factors, he said affected Philippine equities.

“Treasuries yields were lower, citing an increase in demand for safe haven financial instruments,” he added.

Astro del Castillo of First Grade Finance Inc. added: “ Most investors were spooked by the plunge in the Dow Jones. The possible slowdown in global economic growth among other concerns also triggered the sell down.”

Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged by 608.01 points at 24,583.42, easily wiping out all of its gains achieved for 2018 so far.

Similarly, the S&P 500 fell by 3.1 percent to close at 2,656.10 and also turned negative for the year.

It was the same for the Nasdaq Composite which dropped 4.4 percent to 7,108.40 – entering correction territory.

Mostly, global investors remained concern on the US-China trade war, which they fear could dampen corporate profits.