The stock market retreated Friday on bargain hunting after surging Thursday, ignoring gains in the region.
The Philippine Stock Exchange Index fell 19.83 points, or 0.2 percent, to 7,907.66 on a value turnover of P13.3 billion.
Share prices of gaming stocks dropped on knee-jerk reaction to the attack at Resorts World Manila, the integrated gaming and resort development of Travellers International Hotel Group Inc. of tycoon Andrew Tan.
A masked gunman set fire to a gaming room at a casino in Resorts World, igniting a toxic blaze that killed 36 people, authorities said, but they insisted it was not a terrorist attack.
The victims suffocated inside one of the main gambling venues of Resorts World Manila, while dozens of other people were injured in a panicked crush to escape, police said.
Shares of Travellers slumped nearly eight percent to P3.13 from the previous day’s close of P3.40.
Bloomberry Resorts Corp., which operates Solaire Resorts and Casino, and Melco Resorts and Entertainment, which runs City of Dreams Manila, dropped 5.6 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively.
Analysts said the decline in other gaming stock was just a knee-jerk reaction to the attack.
“The other gaming stocks were also victims of Resorts World Manila incident. Several investors are worried about the short term dragged to the gaming industry,” Astro del Castillo, managing director of First Grade Finance Inc.
“Some are also speculating that patrons in the casino industry may shy away for now given the tragic incident,” he added.
The Philippines is one of the fastest-growing casino hubs in Asia, after Macau and Singapore.
The rest of Asian markets headed into the weekend with another round of gains Friday, following a record close for all three major New York indexes as traders welcomed a forecast-busting jobs reading.
But oil retreated on concerns of a ramp-up in fossil-fuel production following Donald Trump’s controversial decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, though there was little major impact on equity markets.
While there are concerns about the future of Trump’s economic agenda, strong data have taken the front seat in driving global equity gains in recent weeks, pushing them to multi-year highs.
Tokyo ended up 1.6 percent, breaking the 20,000 mark for the first time since December 2015 as the jobs data lifted the dollar against the yen, boosting exporters. Hong Kong added 0.4 percent, while Sydney put on 0.9 percent and Seoul gained 1.2 percent.
Singapore, Wellington and Taipei also posted healthy gains while Shanghai edged up 0.1 percent.
Energy-related firms were barely affected by the decision to leave the Paris agreement.
And the advance was given a bump Thursday when payrolls firm ADP said the world’s biggest economy created more than a quarter of a million jobs in May, far more than expected and boosting hopes for government figures due later in the day. With AFP
