The stock market fell Monday on profit-taking to end a 10-day rally that saw the Philippine Stock Exchange Index climbing to a record high Friday.
The PSEi dropped 44.36 points, or 0.6 percent, to 7,358.36 on a value turnover of P23.7 billion. Losers beat gainers, 111 to 69, with 44 issues unchanged.
Ayala Land Inc., a major property developer, tumbled 2.9 percent to P34. The company raised P16 billion selling shares at a discount to help fund a record P100-billion spending plan this year.
Ayala Land completed placement of 484.8 million shares at P33, it said in a stock exchange filing Monday. That represents a 5.7-percent discount to the closing price of P35 on Jan. 9.
The share sale was done through a top-up placement, where parent Ayala Corp. sold the shares in Ayala Land and then subscribed to the same amount of new equity in the builder.
The sale is the single-largest capital-raising exercise for Ayala Land, helping the builder meet its goal of boosting profit by 20 percent annually to P40 billion by 2020, president Bobby Dy said in the statement. This year’s capital spending proposal is the largest, he said in a mobile-phone message.
Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., the second-biggest lender, slipped 0.6 percent to P88, while parent GT Capital Holdings Inc. of tycoon George Ty, declined 1 percent to P1,099.
Universal Robina Corp., the largest snack food maker, lost 1.3 percent to P194, while parent JG Summit Holdings Inc. of retail and airline tycoon John Gokongwei fell 3.5 percent to P67.50.
Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. of former senator Manuel Villar tumbled 5.8 percent to P6.55, while D&L Industries Inc. dropped 2.5 percent to P15.46.
Technology stock Xurpas Inc. jumped 10.6 percent to P11.06, while SSI Group Inc., a retailer of specialty products, advanced 4.6 percent to P11.30.
Meanwhile, oil prices tumbled again Monday, while most Asian stock markets also retreated after a sell-off in New York at the end of last week that came in reaction to data showing weak US wage growth.
The news on wages, which overshadowed another forecast-beating rise in jobs creation, pushed the dollar down against the euro and yen as it complicates the Federal Reserve’s plans to hike interest rates. With AFP, Bloomberg