PSE INDEX DOWN ON PROPERTY ROUT

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) index declined today on a property stocks rout after briefly attaining a small gain in mid-trade in another day of investors pocketing their gains from a two-week surge of share prices to close at 6,581.38 points, down by 36.54 points or 0.53 percent.

With SM Prime and Ayala Land closing at an identical P36, with the former showing a decline of 95 centavos and the latter by 65 centavos, the property sub-index keeled over by a huge 2.006 percent.

The two occupied the numero uno and numero dos in terms of trades with SM Prime trading P979 million, of which P313 million was foreign selling, and Ayala Land, with trades of P955 million, of which P208 million represented foreign selling.

Last Thursday, Ayala Land had a block sale transaction valued at P5.3 billion, but it could not be known who was the seller nor the buyer.

Value turnover amounted to another hefty P9.797 billion with 98 gainers, 106 losers and 46 shares unchanged, with market bellwether SM Investments closing P1 higher to P1,000 and Jollibee Foods losing P1.40 to P200.60 with foreign selling of P51 million out of its trades P180 million.

Ayala Energy rose by 34 centavos to close at P8.50, up 4.17 percent as foreign buyers cleaned the board every time there were sellers. Foreign buying amounted to P42 million out of its P246 million in transactions in a day that saw net foreign selling balloon to P856 million on foreign buying of P5.694 billion and foreign selling of P6.551 billion.

ICTSI and Puregold posted respective increases of P7 to P160 and 15 centavos to P40.90 to nudge the services sub-sector by 0.98 percent.

The other gainer was the industrials, which went up by 0.86 percent.

The losing sub-indices were financials, down by 1.06 percent, holding firms, 0.19 percent, and mining and oil 0.51 percent, and the property sub-sector.

BDO Unibank and Metrobank posted losses, while Bank of PI was up. BDO went down by P3.30 to P113.10, Metrobank by 55 centavos to P48.90, while BPI gained 50 centavos to P88. Both PLDT and Globe were down respectively by P26 to P1,261 and P25 to P1,815.

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