Stocks ease 17 pts on weak peso, Nasdaq plunge

Dragged down by the overnight drop in the technology-laden Nasdaq market and the weakening peso, local stocks tumbled anew in yesterday's trading, halting a mild three-day uptick that surprisingly started in the middle of the traditionally somber Holy Week.

The 30-company composite index shed 16.9 points or 1.01 percent to end at 1647.66, wiping the immediate two-day gain but this was still well within the expected trading range of between 1600 and 1700 for this week.

The Nasdaq index plunged 4.4 percent on Monday while the peso depreciated to an 18-month low against the dollar in mid-trade yesterday.

GK Goh Securities research head Ivy Cayayan said the weak peso gave investors an excuse to sell down the market. Currency traders said banks were buying up dollars in anticipation as strong corporate demand ahead of an anticipated hike in key US interest rates.

The drop in the Phisix, however, was not fully reflected across the sectors. The commercial-industrial and oil counters went down but the financial services, mining and property boards closed higher.

Trading volume went up from a paltry 886.9 million shares valued at P480.2 million on Monday to a more sizable 2.325 billion shares worth P945 million. However, losers swamped gainers, 50 to 22, while 35 issues were unchanged.

Blue chip stocks again dominated trading yesterday, led by PLDT, San Miguel, Meralco along with Globe Telecom and PhilWeb.

Telecom giant PLDT said it would form part of a 25-member regional consortium to build the first "self-healing, high-bandwidth optical fiber submarine cable system" spread out in eight countries in Asia Pacific. PLDT will own and operate the Philippine landing station.

The Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN 2) will be bankrolled at an initial cost of $1 billion and will start commercial traffic by September 2001. Upon completion, the 19,000-km long cable system connecting China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines will provide seamless interconnection with other cable networks to the US, Europe, Australian and other parts of Asia and provide upgradable, future-ready transmission facilities for Internet and e-commerce.

Integrated Internet company PhilWeb.com, meanwhile, has acquired full ownership of EasyCom, Inc., an Internet service provider (ISP), for P9 million. With the forthcoming opening of its Internet cafe chain, Cyber World, PhilWeb will be strengthening its foothold in this market with the ISP acquisition.

Both PLDT and PhilWeb, however, closed lower at P780 and P0.185, respectively.

Globe Telecom rose 50 centavos to P14.50 following reports of a 52-percent jump in its first quarter net income to P335 million, on the back of a 71-percent increase in its revenues of P3.4 billion during the period. The remarkable increase was attributed to the continued growth of its bread-and-butter mobile phone service, attracting 1.25 million subscribers to date from only 916,000 at the end of 1999.