The stock market declined for the fifth straight day Monday, weighed down by nervous investors and extended profit-taking.
The Philippine Stock Exchange Index fell 59.57 points, or 0.7 percent, to 8,084.45 on a value turnover of P7.6 billion. Losers beat losers, 119 to 68, with 55 issues unchanged.
Conglomerate Ayala Corp. dropped 2.1 percent to P984.50, while Security Bank Corp., the fifth-largest lender in terms of assets, lost 2.4 percent to P241.
MarcoAsia Corp., which provides airport services, retreated 1.9 percent to P20.65, while Jollibee Foods Corp., the largest fastfood chain, declined 1.6 percent to P241.40.
Meanwhile, the dollar rose in Asia on Monday after US senators squeezed through a tax-cut bill at the weekend, but equities were muted on news that a former aide to Donald Trump had agreed to co-operate with a probe into Russian election interference.
US markets saw sharp swings on the news and all three main indexes in New York ended Friday in negative territory.
In Asia, Tokyo finished 0.5 percent lower, while Shanghai shed 0.2 percent, Sydney eased 0.1 percent and Singapore was 0.4 percent off. Wellington also sank.
However, Hong Kong edged up 0.4 percent after falling for five straight days, while Seoul closed more than one percent higher.
After marathon talks in Washington lawmakers finally passed controversial reforms to the tax system, which the president says will fire up the world’s number one economy.
The greenback strengthened against the yen, euro and pound, though dealers remain reticent as both houses of Congress must reconcile their differing bills before sending a final draft to the White House, while analysts also warned of political risk.
“If the legislation gets ratified quickly, there would likely be another dollar bounce, but the longer this drags out, the dollar will probably sell off as political uncertainty has been the greenback’s undoing over and over again in 2017,” said Stephen Innes, head of Asia-Pacific trading at OANDA.
Traders are keeping a close watch on Washington after former White House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn admitted lying to investigators probing possible collusion between the Trump election campaign and Moscow.
Commentators said the developments bring the probe closer to Trump and his family, while some have also leapt on a tweet by the tycoon suggesting he knew that Flynn had lied to the FBI. With AFP
“Trump haters are all over this as a sign of complicity and some say the odds of impeachment have just risen materially,” said Greg McKenna, chief market strategist at AxiTrader.
While oil prices eased, energy firms enjoyed a rally after crude jumped almost two percent on Friday in reaction to a deal between Opec and Russia to extend production caps through to the end of next year.
Bitcoin was back above $11,000, having rallied to another record close to $12,000 after a US regulator cleared the way Friday for futures in the unit to trade on major exchanges. With AFP