Share prices succumb to profit taking

MANILA, Philippines — With prices hovering at eight-month highs, the stock market fell prey to profit takers, bringing down the main index at the close of trading yesterday.

The 30-company benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index or PSEi slipped 69.95 points or 0.97 percent to finish at 7,108.67.

Likewise, the broader All Shares index declined 25.71 points or 0.60 percent to end at 4,228.55.

All the other gauges finished in the red except for property which managed to stay in the green, rising by 0.27 percent.

Total value turnover was robust at P12.947 billion. Market breadth was negative, 134 to 101, while 40 issues were unchanged.

“The PSEi ended with substantial losses as selling pressure picked up, which was to be expected as it hovered around its eight-month high. A selldown was seen across the board with holding firms taking the biggest hit. Trading volumes came in at a whopping P12.4 billion, more than double the daily average of about P6 billion as investors remain confident in the current environment.  The selldown was mainly due to profit-taking,” said Chris Mangun of AAA Southeast Equities.

Meanwhile, property giant Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) said yesterday it was selected as an index component of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) for its “outstanding corporate sustainability performance.”

ALI is the only real estate company from the Philippines that made it to the index, ranking it among the most sustainable companies in the world based on rigorous global environmental, social and governance (ESG) analytics and criteria.

Launched in 1999, the DJSI, including the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, were among the very first set of global indexes to track the largest and leading sustainability-driven publicly listed companies.

Listed companies in 61 countries were scored in different categories such as economic, social, environmental and governance.