Share prices ended flat Wednesday as investors took to overseas leads to trade the market.
In a statement, the Philippine Stock Exchange said Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) is now down 20.6 percent as of the first half of the year. All sectoral indices were down, with the services sector down 8.3 percent while the remaining sectors posted double digit losses at the end of the semester, ranging from 15.0 to 35.6 percent.
Daily average trading value turnover was at P6.59 billion, lower by 15.9 percent from the P7.84 billion average turnover last year. Foreign funds were net sellers at P68.44 billion, a reversal from the P21.26 billion net foreign in 2019.
“While the index may have recovered from oversold levels it has not been able to climb back to its pre-COVID-19 (new coronavirus disease 2019) levels indicating that investors are still quite wary about the full impact of the virus on the economy and are concerned that the number of cases continue to increase despite the various community quarantine regimes we went through” said Ramon Monzon, PSE president.
“Foreign funds have left emerging markets including the Philippines as a result of the health and economic crisis caused by COVID-19. Even if there are attractive bargains in emerging markets, foreign institutional funds prefer to sit it out. Fortunately, local investors readily took over the buying momentum and kept our market resilient. In April and June, we noted that locals were responsible for 53.0 percent and 58.9 percent of value turnover,” he added.
Capital raised for the period was at P20.83 billion.
“After the successful IPO (initial public offering) of MerryMart Consumer Corp., and the listing by way of introduction of Altus Property Ventures, Inc. in June, we hope to have two to three more capital raising activities for the rest of the year. Hopefully, these two new listings will help prop up trading activity even as we await the listing of the first REIT IPO,” said added.
At yesterday’s trading, the PSEi was up 1.99 points to 6,209.71, a 0.03 percent hike.
The broader all shares index was up 5.58 points to 3,650.75, a 0.15 percent hike.
Losers edged gainers 98 to 95 with 47 stocks unchanged. Trading turnover reached P15.66 billion, including a P9.6 billion special block sale of First Gen Corp. covering the tender offer of Valorous Asia Holdings Pte. Ltd., a unit of KKR Asia Pacific Infrastructure Holdings Pte. Ltd. in the company.
The peso closed at 49.82 to the dollar, up from 49.83 on Tuesday.
The currency opened at 49.76, an intraday high and hit a low of 49.87. Trading turnover reached $681.45 million.
Luis Limlingan, managing director at Regina Capital Development Corp., said the market rallied in low volume driven by new on “positive trends in the virus, reopening of economies and a hope of a vaccine.”
Most actively traded Altus Property Ventures Inc. was up P0.50 to P42.10. SM Investments Corp. was down P19 to P920. MerryMart Consumer Corp. was down P0.14 to P3.36. Dito CME Holdings Corp. was up P0.07 to P3.77. Ayala Land Inc. was up P0.10 to P33.90. SM Prime Holdings Inc. was up P0.50 to P32.35. BDO Unibank Inc. was down P0.10 to P97.90. Cosco Capital Corp. was up P0.38 to P5.44. GT Capital Holdings Corp. was up P4.80 to P459. Metro Pacific Investments Corp. was down P0.08 to P3.62.
