PSEi drops on GDP fears, US declines

Credit to Author: TYRONE JASPER C. PIAD| Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2019 16:24:20 +0000

An overnight drop on Wall Street and apprehensions over 2018 economic growth results weighed on share prices on Wednesday, with the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) again falling below the 8,000 level.

The benchmark PSEi closed at 7,989.65, 0.24 percent or 19.02 points weaker from Tuesday, while the wider All Shares grew 0.08 percent or 4.04 points to finish at 4,814.01.

P2P Trade Online sales associate Gabriel Jose Perez said investors were having some “hesitations” over 2018 gross domestic product (GDP) data to be released Thursday.

Ahead of the announcement, state statisticians lowered the third quarter GDP figure to 6.0 percent from 6.1 percent, although year-to-date growth remained at 6.3 percent.

Philstocks Financial Inc. research associate Piper Chaucer Tan said investors were on “wait-and-see” mode.

He also said that the market “mimicked the US market sell-off as worries on trade talk negotiations and global growth slowdown has been churning the Philippine markets,” he added.

Overnight, the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all ended in the red, dipping by 1.22 percent, 1.42 percent and 1.91 percent respectively amid renewed worries over US-China trade talks.

Asian markets were mixed on Wednesday.

Hong Kong was flat, having swung back and forth through the day, while Shanghai closed 0.1 percent higher and Tokyo ended slightly down.

Sydney was down 0.3 percent while Singapore shed 0.5 percent and Seoul added 0.5 percent. Wellington and Taipei were all lower while Mumbai, Bangkok and Jakarta inched up.

In Manila, all sectors ended in the red with mining and oil sector down the most by 0.89 percent.

Volume turnover stood at 1.22 billion shares valued at P6.66 billion.

Losers led winners, 120-77, while 57 issues were unchanged.

With a reports from AFP

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