THE Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) succumbed to afternoon profit taking to join many Asian peers’ general downward trek on Monday.

The PSEi lost 103.46 points or 1.22% to finish 8,330.02, while the all-shares index dropped 37.24 points or 0.75% to end 4,894.62.

The benchmark index had actually opened 0.32% higher than last Friday’s 8,433.48 finish at 8,460.62 and peaked for the day 0.63% up at 8,486.61 before closing at Monday’s lowest point.

Only one of the six sectoral indices ended the day with gains, while foreigners remained net sellers for a third straight trading day.

“The local market dashed up at the opening bell and traded in the green for most of the session,” RCBC Securities, Inc. Equity Research Analyst Jeffrey Lucero said in a note. “In the afternoon, however, investors started to take profits on index-heavyweights” like Ayala Land, Inc. and SM Prime Holdings, Inc.

A number of other Asian bourses shared PSEi’s fate on Monday: Japan’s Nikkei 225 and TOPIX Index, South Korea’s KOSPI Index, the Straits Times Index and the Jakarta Composite Index losing 1.32%, 0.94%, 0.50%, 0.03% and 0.01%, respectively.

A few others gained, including Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index and the Shanghai Composite Index that added 0.21% and 0.47%, respectively.

Among PSEi’s six sectoral indices, only industrials gained yesterday, adding 84.18 points or 0.77% to 10,993.11.

All the others lost: property by 74.92 points or 1.89% to 3,880.49, holding firms by 115.66 points or 1.34% to 8,496.54, services by 20.25 points or 1.19% to 1,668.41, mining and oil by 146.83 or 1.18% to 12,270.65 and financials by 22.39 points or 1.06% to 2,072.22.

The list of Monday’s 20 most actively traded stocks showed D&L Industries, Inc. surging by 5.26% to P10.80 apiece; Manila Electric Co. increasing by 3.66% to P305.80; East West Banking Corp. gaining 3.11% to P33.15; Jollibee Foods Corp. rising by 2.31% to P257 and Cemex Holdings Philippines, Inc. adding 1.22% to P4.15 apiece.

Those that declined included Bloomberry Resorts Corp. that gave up 3.49% to P10.50 apiece; Semirara Mining and Power Corp. that dropped 3.13% to P37.10; Ayala Land, Inc. that fell by 2.97% to P42.50; SM Investments Corp. that went down by 2.76% to P953 and Megaworld Corp. that slipped by 2.14% to P5.50 each.

Stocks that declined continued to outnumber those that gained 115 to 72, while 49 others were unchanged.

Trading volume grew to 1.57 billion shares worth P8.22 billion from Friday’s 1.17 billion shares worth P7.53 billion.

Foreign investors remained largely sellers for a third consecutive trading day, although Monday’s P1.50-billion net sales was the biggest in that period.

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