Stocks plunge deeper on lack of positive leads

MANILA, Philippines — The stock market ended February in the red, plunging deeper yesterday on continuing lack of leads.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index plummeted 183.63 points, or 2.32 percent, to close in the negative territory for the second consecutive session at 7,705.49.

The broader All Shares index also suffered heavy losses as it dropped 1.64 percent or 79.61 points to settle at 4,769.75.

“Philippines shares closed mostly lower to end the month of February as the sentiment was dominated by Congressional hearings on trade and Federal Reserve policies but light on market-moving news.” said Regina Capital’s Luis Limlingan.

It was a bloodbath as all local counters fell by at least one percent, led by financials which declined 3.03 percent.

Holding firms, mining and oil, and industrial all lost more than two percent respectively.

Value turnover soared to P17.58 billion as ANA Holdings purchase of 1.103 billion PAL Holdings shares from Trustmark Holdings Corp. was effected through the Philippine Stock Exchange by way of a special block sale.

Market breadth was negative as decliners crushed advancers, 142 to 56, while 43 stocks were unchanged.

“Drop was due to the MSCI rebalancing which saw outflows on most of the heavy caps. Foreign flows would also have been an outflow of P1.2 billion, without PAL’s block transaction worth P4.9 billion,” Gabriel Perez of Papa Securities said.