SHARES in ACEN Corp. went down last week to overshadow consecutive news of the Ayala-led energy firm’s business expansions as selling pressure persisted.
ACEN finished as the 13th most actively traded stock last week with a total of 115.681 million stocks worth P690.19 million changing hands, based on data from the Philippine Stock Exchange.
The firm’s shares closed at P4.40 apiece last Friday, 4.3% lower than the P4.60 close a week ago. For the year, the stock price has decreased by 42.3%.
China Bank Securities Corp. Research Director, Rastine Mackie D. Mercado, attributed ACEN stock movement to “fund flows and continued selling pressure.”
He added that the early week weakness of the stock was driven by net foreign outflows.
During the week, the renewable energy company grew in market volume, peaking at 63.883 million stocks traded last Friday. The rise in volume was driven by selling pressure on ACEN stocks leading to a lower price per share.
Mr. Mercado said in an e-mail that the selling pressure and foreign outflow for the stock was due to “investors repositioning their portfolios to avoid index laggards and take advantage of opportunities in index leaders.”
ACEN stock has been on a downtrend since its peak closing price of P5.45 apiece on Nov. 6.
Despite the near-term movement, Mr. Mercado is positive on the long-term trend of ACEN given its pipeline and the continued rollout of fresh power generation assets.
Similarly, Toby Allan C. Arce, head of sales trading at Globalinks Securities and Stocks, Inc., expects that the asset and portfolio growth of ACEN poses a positive outlook for the stock.
“Over the course of the week, ACEN Corp. has secured loan facilities from several institutions to finance its renewable energy projects both here and abroad in an effort to reach its goal of having 20 GW (gigawatts) of installed renewables by 2030,” Mr. Arce said in a Viber message.
On Dec. 13, ACEN secured a green term loan with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd. amounting to 75 million Australian dollars. On the same day, the company publicized the acquisition of a term loan facility worth P7 billion with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. to support its renewable energy projects.
Additionally, on Dec. 14, it secured the sustainability-linked loan facility with Bank of the Philippine Islands and the Asian Development Bank amounting to P11 billion.
“[The loan] provides them with access to capital for potential growth projects, debt refinancing, or other strategic initiatives. This could potentially boost investor confidence and lead to a positive stock price reaction in the days to come,” said Mr. Arce.
For the third quarter, ACEN reported a 20.1% growth in its net income attributable to equity holders of the parent company to P2.33 billion from P1.94 billion a year earlier. Year to date, it went up by 59.5% to P6.57 million from P4.12 million a year ago.
Mr. Arce projects ACEN’s full-year net income to reach P8.9 billion.
Mr. Mercado placed the company’s support level at P4.30 and resistance at P4.65.
“Support may range [from] P4.33 to P4.30, while resistance is estimated to range between P4.65 and P4.80,” Mr. Arce said. — Andrea C. Abestano
