Profit-taking snaps bourse's rally

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - Profit-taking pulled down the stock market today, bucking the performance of the global equities.

After breaching the 6,300-level on Thursday, the bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index gave up 0.70 percent or 44.40 points of its gains this week to settle at 6,308.36. The broader all-share index also lost 0.64 percent, or 24.48 points, to 3,802. 02.

Trading volume reached 1.65 billion shares worth P7.44 billion ($166.45 million) with 98 stocks declining, 61 advancing, and 45 were unchanged.

Of the six counters, only the mining and oil sector bucked the trend.

"Investors opted to lighten positions ahead of the weekend, deviating from global trends," analyst Justino Calaycay of Accord Capital Equities Corp. said in his daily stock market comment.

US equities snapped a two-session slump on Thursday, while Europe and Asian equities all surged to higher territories.

Despite today's drop, it was a generally good week for investors. The composite index ended the week with a gain of 194. 70 points or 3.18 percent higher from last week's close.

"Earnings, or more accurately expectations over earnings, was the main fulcrum on which sentiments turned and trading and investment decisions revolved," Calaycay said.

He said investors could expect this to continue in the next couple of weeks given that only a number of local companies have disclosed their earnings.

Stocks in the 30-company index closed mixed. Among those that tumbled were Ayala Land, Inc., SM Investments Corp. and Ayala Corp.