PSE Index In Freefall

The Philippine Stock Exchange index is in freefall after an opening surge with all sub-indices pulsating with gains to close down by 48.75 points or 0.77 percent as sell-downs immediately ensued.

Photo Insert: The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Index, June 21, 2022

Market bellwether SM Investments emerged most active stock on trades of P304 million with its share price closing 2.03 percent or P16 lower to P774 after a brief fling at a higher price of P796 but which immediately sunk to a low of P772 on the sell-down before the close to mirror the market's performance.

Property giants Ayala Land and SM Prime followed with trades of P262 million and P241 million respectively as they also posted losses of 15 centavos to P27.65 and 45 centavos to P36.45. ALI had a high and low of P28.45 and P27.69 while SMPH had P37.20 and P36.05 trades.

Value turnover remained below average at p3. 9 billion with 87 gainers, 94 losers, and 53 shares unchanged. The industrials and the mining and oil posted gains of 0.56 percent and 0.20 percent while the financials lost 0.50 percent, holding firms 1.09 percent, services 1.12 percent, and property down by 1.00 percent.

There were eight gainers among the Top 20 active stocks though as investors continued to look for bargains even with the continued uncertainty with the Ukraine crisis that has led to spikes in inflation after the rise in energy and food prices.

Among the gainers were Globe, up P8 to P2,100, PhilWeb up 78 centavos to P5.95, Jollibee up 80 centavos to P196.80, Semirara Mining, up 70 centavos to P35.70, Meralco up P1.60 to P371, BDO Unibank up 20 centavos to P123, Converge up 2 centavos to P19.32, Megaworld up 4 centavos to P2.32 while Metro Pacific was unchanged at P3.62.

Ayala REIT lost P1.30 to P34.85, Bank of PI down 90 centavos to P92.60, PLDT, down P40 to p1,790, ICTSI down P4.30 to P195.10, Ayala Corp down P12 to P630, and Solar Philippines down a centavo to P1.56.

The index surge today benefitted from the research note from Credit Suisse which upgraded Philippine stocks to overweight meaning that more funds should be placed in local stocks due to the perceived economic resilience even with the lower value of the peso against the dollar and the huge debts of about P13 trillion.

The reason advanced was the incoming administration is seen to have technocrats at the helm who would be able to pilot the country to better economic prospects ahead even with the tailwinds brought by the Ukraine crisis.

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