MANILA, Philippines – Local shares fell on Friday as investors fear a new virus variant will dampen economic recovery.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index dropped 1.08% to finish weekly trading at 7,289.8.
The broader All-Shares index shed 33.12 points as all sub-indices figured in the red. Shares in the property index declined 1.73%.
For Luis Limlingan, head of sales at local brokerage Regina Capital, the slump on Friday reflected investors’ fears over the ‘nu’ variant, first detected in South Africa.
“Shares in the Philippines and across the region fell as renewed fears of the new covid variant which will be called 'nu' if it's deemed a 'variant of concern' by the WHO special meeting,” Limlingan said in a Viber message.
Regional markets did not fare so well either. Shares in Tokyo dived three percent while Hong Kong was more than 2% off — with Sydney, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, Mumbai, Wellington and Jakarta more than 1% lower.
Hong Kong authorities reported that the B.1.1.529 variant popped up in the city as well.
Nevertheless, the PSE announced earlier this week that trading hours would revert to its usual 9am-3pm starting December 6.
Rastine Mercado, research head at Chinabank Securities, said the local bourse would be sensitive to this pandemic developments since the previous Delta variant surge sent infections to a record-high of 26,000 around the Philippines.
“We expect the market to remain sensitive to developments regarding this over the near-term even as the domestic pandemic situation continues to improve,” he said in a text message.
At home, foreign investors sold P545.03 million more shares than they bought in the stock market. A total of 1.04 billion local shares, valued at P9.97 billion, switched hands on Friday. — with AFP