Stocks retract on profit taking

MANILA, Philippines — The local stock market hit a wall again yesterday, erasing Thursday’s advance to return to negative territory, ending four straight weeks of gains.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) closed at 6,912.85, down 55.58 points or 0.80 percent while the broader All Shares index slipped 27.69 points or 0.64 percent to finish at 4,295.84.

Total value turnover reached P15.2 billion. Market breadth was negative, 119 to 74, with 52 issues unchanged.

Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist at BDO Unibank, earlier said the market is having difficulty sustaining the rally toward the 7,000 level.

“It’s hitting a wall of worry (pandemic, inflation woes, US taper just around the corner). Market players are taking any rally to lighten up /take profits and wait for prices to come down,” he said.

For Claire Alviar, research analyst at PhilStocks Financial, the local bourse’s drop could be attributed to profit-taking on the last trading day of the week, with a spillover of negative sentiment after Moody’s Investors Service trimmed its Philippine growth projection for 2021 to 4.8 percent due to the reimposition of strict lockdowns and slow vaccine rollout.

Net foreign selling of P812.96 million also weighed on the performance of the market.

Moving forward, she said if profit-taking with huge market participation continues, the market may decline further and may not be able to successfully breach the 7,000 to 7,100 levels.