Stocks fell Monday, as the prospect of a US interest-rate increase and concern over Chinese growth sapped demand for riskier assets.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index, the 30-company benchmark, shed 31 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 7,358.21. This reduced total gains this year to 5.8 percent.
The heavier index, representing all shares, also lost 35 points, or 0.8 percent, to settle at 4,367.57, on a value turnover of P6.7 billion. Advancers outnumbered gainers, 94 to 86, while 47 issues were unchanged.
Ten of the 20 most active stocks ended in the green, led by LT Group Inc., the holding company of tycoon Lucio Tan, which climbed 3.7 percent to P15.62 and Manila Water Company Inc. which went up 2.8 percent to P31.25.
Cyber Bay Corp. surged 22.2 percent to P0.66, after it announced that it signed a compromise deal with state-run Philippine Reclamation Authority over the controversial Manila Bay reclamation project.
Coal miner Semirara Mining and Power Corp. gained 2.7 percent to P126, while property developer Megaworld Corp. traded higher by 2.7 percent to close at P4.25.
Meanwhile, most Asian markets fell Monday following healthy gains at the end of last week, with investors betting the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates before the end of the year.
Shares soared Friday after data showed a first rise in Chinese factory prices for more than four years, fuelling hopes the world’s number two economy is reaching the end of a years-long growth slowdown.
Analysts said comments from Fed boss Janet Yellen Friday suggested the US central bank will lift borrowing costs but at a steady pace.
Yellen said there were plausible ways that running a “high-pressure economy” could help it overcome the damage caused by the global financial crisis.
“If nothing else, this is another lower-for-longer prescription. However, these comments do not preclude a 25-basis-point rate hike this year as another step in the normalization process,” Thomas Simons, senior economist at Jefferies LLC in New York, wrote in a note to clients.
Most experts predict a hike by December at the latest and are keeping a close eye on the release this week of US industrial output and inflation data.
The prospect of higher borrowing costs weighed on Asian markets.
Hong Kong fell one percent and Sydney was 0.5 percent lower, while Seoul shed 0.2 percent, Singapore slipped 0.7 percent and Wellington sank 1.1 percent. But Tokyo was 0.2 percent up by the break and Shanghai added 0.1 percent. With AFP, Bloomberg