Local shares snapped their five-day winning streak on Tuesday, July 31, after investors resorted to profit taking ahead of the United States’ Federal Reserve’s meeting this week.
The 30-company Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) gave up 1.3% or 101.32 points to close at 7,672. The broader all shares index also lost 0.89% or 41.16 points to 4,604.12.
“Market had a profit taking today after four days run-up following regional market downtrend,” Diversified Securities, Inc. Trader Aniceto K. Pangan said in a text message.
Regina Capital Development Corp. Managing Director Luis A. Limlingan also blamed profit-taking for the index’s slowdown, saying in a separate message: “After five consecutive days of bargain hunting, investors decided to take profit from issues that they had bought earlier.”
All sectoral indices ended in negative territory, led by property which plunged 1.72% or 65.72 points to 3,754.81. Financials went down by 1.19% or 22.33 points to 1,858.92; holding firms slowed by 1.13% or 86.88 points to 7,593.74; mining and oil by 0.99% or 96.88 points to 9,714.41; industrial by 0.82% or 89.7 points to 10,830.18; and services by 0.52% or 7.79 points to 1,493.58.
Turnover accelerated to P7.05 billion after some 842 million issues switched hands, higher than the P5.61-billion turnover recorded in the previous session.
Decliners were more than double the number of stocks that advanced, 130 to 63, while 52 issues ended flat.
The list of 20 most actively traded stocks counted 15 losers, including Ayala Land, Inc. (down 3.2% to P40.85); BDO Unibank, Inc. (down 1.49% to P132); Ayala Corp. (down 1.38% to P999); Universal Robina Corp. (down 5.88% to P128); and PLDT, Inc. (down 1.62% to P1,337).
Gainers for the day included five stocks, namely Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (up 0.43% to P4.71); Jollibee Foods Corp. (up 1.5% to P270); Globe Telecom, Inc. (up 1.21% to P1,835), DMCI Holdings, Inc. (up 0.68% to P11.80), and International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (up 0.68% to P89).
Foreigners continued their buying spree, posting P255.59 million in net purchases, albeit lower than the previous session’s P511 million net foreign inflows. — Arra B. Francia

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