Typhoon worries pull PSEi to 7,400

The stock market plunged back to the 7,400 level on Friday, bucking gains elsewhere in the region, as investors chose to take profits ahead of the arrival of a strong typhoon.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) ended the day down 1.39 percent or 104.22 points to close at 7,413.15.

The wider All Shares declined 1.02 percent or 47.01 points to finish at 4,555.30.

Regina Capital Development Corp. head of sales Luis Limlingan said Philippine shares succumbed to profit-taking following Thursday’s 0.92-percent rebound from six straight days of losses.

Philstocks Financial, Inc. research analyst Piper Chaucer Tan, meanwhile, blamed investor worries over Typhoon Ompong that was scheduled to slam into the northern Philippines on Saturday.

Elsewhere in the region, most markets extended gains on hopes for China-US trade talks and news that US consumer price inflation slid in August, easing pressure on the Federal Reserve to tighten borrowing costs.

While the US central bank is expected to lift rates next month, the figures lower the chances of another such move before January and provided a boost to equities on Wall Street.

The Dow Jones, S&P500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq up 0.57 percent, 0.53 percent and 0.75 percent, respectively, overnight.

Tokyo, meanwhile, ended 1.2 percent higher and Sydney was 0.6 percent up on Friday.

Hong Kong rose one percent, adding to the previous day’s 2.5-percent rise, while Seoul surged 1.4 percent and
Singapore gained 0.9 percent. Wellington, Taipei, Bangkok and Jakarta also enjoyed healthy advances.
Shanghai, however, dipped 0.2 percent

In Manila, all sectoral indices booked losses with property down the most at 1.94 percent.

Volume turnover was thin with only 715.9 million issues valued at P6 billion traded
Losers led winners, 115 to 67, while 46 issues were unchanged.

WITH A REPORT FROM AFP

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