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Friday, March 29, 2024

Market tumbles; Globe, BPI drop

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The stock market slumped Wednesday after Donald Trump cast doubt on a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and appeared to hit out at a deal with China that averted a damaging trade war.

The Philippine Stock Exchange Index lost 85.73 points, or 1.1 percent, to 7,560.47 on a value turnover of P5.9 billion. Losers overwhelmed gainers, 116 to 66, with 55 issues unchanged.

Globe Telecom Inc., the second-biggest telecommunications firm, tumbled 5.5 percent to P1,542, while SM Investments Corp. of retail tycoon Henry Sy Sr. shed 3.5 percent to P850.

Bank of the Philippine Islands, the third-largest lender in terms of assets, dropped 3.4 percent to P94, while GT Capital Holdings Inc. of tycoon George Ty fell 2.4 percent to P971.

The rest of Asian markets tumbled after Trump warned there was “a very substantial chance it won’t work out” when asked about next month’s landmark talks, adding they could be delayed or even called off if the North did not agree to give up its nuclear weapons.

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Tokyo ended 1.2 percent down, while Hong Kong returned from a one-day break to drop 1.3 percent and Shanghai shed 1.4 percent.

Sydney slipped 0.2 percent, Singapore was one percent off and Wellington lost 0.7 percent.

Taipei and Bangkok were all sharply down but Seoul was up 0.3 percent, while Jakarta also moved higher.

Trump’s comments, following a meeting with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in, come after Pyongyang last week denounced US demands for unilateral disarmament, throwing the Singapore gathering into uncertainty.

The expected meeting, and the thawing of relations between the North and its rivals in recent months, has given markets hope that peace can be achieved on the Korean peninsula.

The US president’s comments helped spark a reversal on Wall Street, where all three main indexes ended the day in negative territory.

Adding to the selling were his comments on the weekend agreement to avert a trade war with China.

World markets surged Monday after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said they had agreed to pull back from imposing threatened tariffs on billions of dollars of goods, and continue talks on a variety of trade issues.

However, Trump said he was “not satisfied” with the status of the talks, fueling worries that the world’s top two economies could still slug out an economically painful trade war.

“President Trump was keen to remind us overnight that the trade war is not about to leave the stage anytime soon,” said Stephen Innes, head of Asia-Pacific trade at OANDA.

Just earlier in the day China had announced it would slash tariffs on auto imports to 15 percent from 25 percent, a move taken as a sign of easing frictions.

“If you look at history, you find that geopolitics does rattle markets,” Vasu Menon, OCBC Bank vice president, told Bloomberg Television. “The markets are clearly quite nervous because we’ve had a good run and this is an excuse for the markets to take a breather.”

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