Local shares lose ground, tracking regional downtrend

MANILA, Philippines — Local shares lost their luster on Wednesday, tracking losses in Wall Street while awaiting the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas' decision on the country’s monetary policy. 

The Philippine Stock Exchange shed 0.38% of its value, ending at 6,424.21 on Wednesday. The broader All Shares index recorded a similar downtrend, inching down 0.37%. 

Subindices were a mixed bag on Wednesday, led by shares in the mining and oil index dropping 1.39%.

For Luis Limlingan, head of sales at local brokerage Regina Capital, local shares followed the performance of US equities.

“Philippine shares closed lower tracking the performance of the US, with homebuilding stocks bucking the downtrend. The latter came in after the latest data on housing starts and building permits came in stronger than expected,” he said in a Viber message. 

Limlingan noted that local investors awaited the Monetary Board’s decision on Thursday, especially since the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is widely expected to keep rates on pause. 

Hernan Segovia, trader at Summit Securities, said the market recorded another “cheerless close.” 

“Thanks to the usual buy-up using market on close order on some index stocks. There is some sort of notoriety in this type of order as it superficially marks the closing prices,” he said. 

Regional equities slid down as well. Hong Kong sank more than 1% and has now given back all the gains made in last week's rally, while Shanghai was more than 1% down.

There were also losses in Sydney, Wellington, Seoul, and Bangkok, though Tokyo, Singapore, Taipei and Mumbai chalked up gains.

At home, foreign investors bought P344.9 million more shares than they sold in the local stock market. A total of 598.9 million stocks, valued at P5.17 billion, switched hands on Wednesday.  — Ramon Royandoyan with AFP