PSE Index Down On Selling Pressure

The Philippine Stock Exchange index today capitulated on selling pressure with majority of the shares of stock, including the blue chips, opening lower than their Tuesday close, as investors pocketed their gains while others targeted second liners to close at 7,304.02 points, down by 100.59 points or 1.36 percent.

Photo Insert: The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Index, March 2, 2022

Today's trading performance saw the index going down two milestones below, to 7,286.26 points after opening low with much of the shares down immediately from their Tuesday's closing prices.

Market bellwether SM Investments opened lower at P930, raced to a high of P955 before investors cashed in their gains resulting in a P17.10 decline to P930, on trades of P422 million, the second most active stock.

Solar Philippines opened low at P2.06, surged to P2.24, and settled down at the close at P2.11, up by 27 centavos after the PSE allowed it to resume trading after it disclosed its P61 billion share swap deal with its parent firm that some brokers said may have satisfied the PSE officialdom's questions on the huge shares for assets swap such as transparency.

Two other issues posted gains, that of Semirara Mining which closed P2.05 higher to P30.40 a new high for the coal producer, although, like the others, it opened low at P28.70, and DMCI, which advanced by 20 centavos to P8.92.

ICTSI was unchanged at P218, the fourth issue among the top 20 active stocks most of which posted losses.

Only the mining and oil sub-index survived the sell-down, posting a hefty 1.43 percent gain while property lost 2.24 percent, industrials by 1.67 percent, financials by 1.01 percent, services by 0.87 percent, and holdings by 0.78 percent.

Losers overwhelmed gainers, 128 to 65 while there were 44 shares unchanged. Value turnover amounted to P7.78 billion, still above average.

Among the losers were Dito CME which lost 50 centavos to P5.45, Converge, which went down by 70 centavos to P25,90, Bank of PI, down by 35 centavos to P98.15, AC Energy, down 31 centavos to P8.10, Nickel Asia, down 16 centavos to P7.84, and Ayala Land, down P1.10 to P37.90.

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