Stocks continue to drop, weaken

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MANILA — For the third session Thursday, local stocks continue to drop reversing earlier gains as investors continue to anticipate monetary tightening from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) dropped by 10.72 points or 0.15 percent and closed at 7,202.06 points.

The financial, holding firm, and service counters led the decline, while the mining/oil counter did fairly well with a rise of 1.14 percent.

Despite the decline, value turnover for the day is at P6.83 billion, with 99 advancers over 68 decliners. Meanwhile, 50 stocks remained unchanged.

According to some analysts, some investors veered away from pricey large-cap stocks and preferred to get bargains beyond the roster of PSEi.

Both PLDT and Bloomberry lost by more than 1 percent. Some other companies that weighed down the PSEi include Ayala Corp., DMCI, Ayala Land Inc., BPI, and Alliance Global Group Inc.

Semirara and URC also curbed the day’s  decline at +2.08 and +1.16 percent, respectively. On the other hand, BDO, SM Investments Corp., SM Prime, Energy Development Corp., Megaworld and ICTSI all firmed up.

For stocks outside of PSEi, Puregold, Melco, and Cebu Pacific all gained.