Local stocks decline, peso starts trading week flat

The peso finished the day at 52.04, little changed from its 52.05 closed Wednesday last week. (Shutterstock Photo)

MANILA — The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) ended the week’s first trading day in the red, at 7,832.43 points, down 0.03 percent or 2.72 points.

All Shares followed with a 0.04 percent, or 2 points, declined to 4,834.68 points.

Most of the sectors also tracked the main index led by Mining and Oil, which contracted by 0.89 percent. The property came in second with a drop of 0.60 percent and was followed by Financials, 0.46 percent, and Industrial, 0.35 percent.

On the other hand, Services and Holding Firms were able to stand their grounds and even rose by 0.65 percent and 0.51 percent, respectively.

Volume reached 531.48 million shares amounting to PHP6.7 billion.

Losers surpassed gainers at 101 to 74 while 54 shares were unchanged.

Regina Capital Managing Director Luis Limlingan attributed the PSEi’s performance to an absence of markets from which to gain inspiration since “European and HK bourse was closed while the US and the Philippines came from long weekends.”

“Investors are slowly making their way back from the holiday and volumes will continue to pick up as 1Q earnings are underway,” he added.

The peso finished the day at 52.04, little changed from its 52.05 closed Wednesday last week. There was no trading on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as these were holidays.

The session opened at a better level of 51.75 compared to 52.05 in the previous session.

Its opening level is also the local currency’s strongest trade during the day while weakest is 52.1, which brought the day’s average to 51.946.

Volume totaled USD976.9 million, higher than the USD427.3 million at the end of last week’s trading.