PSE Index Still Stuck In The Doldrums

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) index went down again today, with banking stocks accounting for the decline, while holding firms and three other sub-indices posted gains.

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Index, June 18, 2024

This occurred during another day of net foreign selling, as the market remained uninteresting due to the lack of positive economic stories to prop it up. The index closed at 6,368.80 points, down by 14.9 points or 0.23 percent.

Market bellwether SM Investments was up by P3 at the close to P835, but it had a higher opening at P849, which was not sustained as banking stocks went down.

The top three banks, BDO Unibank, Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), and Metrobank, posted losses, resulting in a sell-down of other banking stocks. Holding firms went up by 0.48 percent, industrial by 0.84 percent, property by 0.04 percent, and mining and oil by 0.49 percent.

Financials lost 1.97 percent, and services were down by 0.42 percent.

The market opened higher, near the 6,400 level, but it immediately descended to a low of 6,346.69 before nosing up on bargain hunting. Market pundits remain pessimistic about the market's trajectory due to continued foreign selling.

Foreign buying amounted to P1.322 billion, while foreign selling hit P1.584 billion, resulting in net foreign selling of P262 million.

Value turnover was half of the average at P2.97 billion, with 86 gainers, 96 losers, and 51 shares unchanged.

Among the gainers were Semirara Mining, Abacore, Aboitiz Equity, Alliance Global, Security Bank, Union Bank, EastWest, SPNEC, Emperador, SMC Food and Beverage, AREIT, Robinsons Land, Fruitas, Converge, and Universal Robina.

Also finishing in the green were Jollibee Foods, Monde Nissin, DigiPlus, JG Summit, DoubleDragon, Globe Telecom, DMCI Holdings, Nickel Asia, Oriental Petroleum, Atlas Mining, Wilcon Depot, Steniel, Manila Water, Ayala Land, and Phil Seven.

The losers were PSE, Aboitiz Power, ACEN Corp., Basic Energy, First Gen, Meralco, AgriNurture, DNL Industries, Figaro Coffee, Cebu Air, PAL, Bloomberry, and Citicore REIT.

Also incurring losses were SM Prime, ABS-CBN, GMA-7, Top Frontier, Roxas and Co., Apex Mining, Ginebra, Philex Mining, Greenergy, and Ayala Corp.

The unchanged were Petron, CEMEX Holdings, LT Group, Cebu Landmasters, Puregold, and GT Capital.