Index tumbles 16 pts on absence of buying incentives

Stocks steadily retreated in yesterday’s trading as investors trooped to the sidelines ahead of the expected lull in the impeachment proceedings against President Estrada at the Senate.

With no fresh development on the political front and hardly any leads from the corporate side either, the Phisix tumbled 16.10 points or 1.1 percent to end at an even 1,449. The broader All-Shares index also dipped 1.2 percent or 8.4 points to 724.35.

"There were some action on second and third liners but not enough to boost the market. I think investors will be closely following the impeachment case and react depending on what kind of evidence are presented," Eagle Equities president Joey Roxas said.

Except for a handful, most of the blue chips fell on profit taking, weighed down by the prevailing negative sentiment in the local market caused by the uncertainty in the impeachment case and the country’s deteriorating economic fundamentals.

There were, however, more stocks which advanced, at 47 – led by mining and oil issues – as against 36 decliners and 35 unchanged. Turnover thinned down to P703.03 million, from over P3 billion the past two trading days, due to the absence of huge block sales save for a few blocks of Jollibee Foods as part of the company’s share repurchase program.

Until last Monday, several instances of major block sales involving Philippine Seven Corp. and ABS-CBN and its Philippine Deposit Receipts (PDRs) were crossed at the bourse.

A total of P2.8 billion worth of ABS-CBN’s PDR alone have been disposed by the Lopez-owned Benpres Holdings to an undisclosed global financial investors to gain an indirect 7.56 percent stake in the broadcast giant.

Among those that defied the downtrend were PLDT, the most active stock with 18.25 percent of aggregate deals, as it shot up P5 to P845; Globe Telecom, also adding P5 to P655; and gaming stocks Fairmont Holdings (formerly BW Resources) and Leisure and Resorts World Corp., both operating bingo chains. Fairmont moved up 22 centavos to P1.38 while Leisure inched up one centavo to P58 centavos.

On the losing side were heavyweight stocks such as Meralco B, Ayala Corp., Ayala Land, San Miguel, Bank of the Philippine Islands, SM Prime, Equitable PCI Bank, Benpres Holdings and Metrobank.