Renewed foreign selling drags down local stocks

MANILA, Philippines — Foreign selling pulled down the market yesterday, sending the index below the 8,000 mark.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index tumbled by 76.83 points, or 0.97 percent, to close at 7,833.75.

The broader All Shares gauge, meanwhile, was down 38.71 points, or 0.80 percent, to end at 4,802.89.

The sectoral indices fared no better with all gauges closing in negative territory, with the property index booking the biggest decline of 1.57 percent yesterday.

Total value turnover reached P8.101 billion. Market breadth was negative, 132 to 84 while 39 issues were unchanged.

Foreign buying was P3.8 billion while foreign selling reached P4.2 billion. Net foreign selling amounted to P290 million with local and foreign participation divided equally at 50 percent.

Gabriel Jose Perez of Papa Securities said the renewed round of net foreign selling dragged the index to trade in the red for most of the day.

“US markets opened once again (last night) after the President’s Day holiday so it should be good to watch out for how they fare. Initial support area for the PSEi should it see more foreign selling tom is in the 7,700  to 7,800 area,” Perez said.

Among the major decliners yesterday were Ayala Land Inc, which lost 3.7 percent, BDO, which lost 3.2 percent and Universal Robina Corp., which shed 3.1 percent.

BDO and ALI took the top two spots for the highest net foreign selling of P255 million and P182 million, respectively.

On the other hand, Robinsons Land Corp. gained 6.9 percent as did Megaworld which rose 5.3 percent