The stock market closed flat Monday in mixed trading, with investors picking up some speculative issues and ignoring the sell-off across Asia.
The Philippine Stock Exchange Index minimally slipped 2.49 points, or 0.03 percent, to 7,596.15 on a value turnover of P7.4 billion. Losers overwhelmed gainers, 124 to 62, with 55 issues unchanged.
Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. of the Gokongwei Group declined 1.5 percent to P79.60. The company said last week it was boosting its stake in Ministop Philippines to 59.1 percent from 51 percent as Japanese trading firm Mitsubishi Corp. divests from the business.
IRC Properties Inc., formerly Interport Resources Corp. and now led by businessman Antonio Tiu, jumped 22.5 percent to P2.34 IRC has transformed itself into holding a company with investments in infrastructure and real estate after obtaining an original proponent status for the planned $3.7-billion Makati intra-rail city project.
Vulcan Industrial & Mining Corp. surged 16.6 percent to P2.18, while Melco Resorts and Entertainment (Philippines) Corp., which operates the City of Dreams Manila casino, rose 11.1 percent to P6.90.
Hong Kong and Shanghai, meanwhile, led a broad sell-off across most Asian markets Monday after Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on all Chinese imports, ramping up fears of an all-out trade war between the world’s top two economies.
The president’s comments Friday added to the uncertainty on trading floors, which have also been hit by concerns of a brewing financial crisis in emerging markets.
They also overshadowed data showing a bigger-than-forecast jump in US jobs creation for August and sent all three main indexes on Wall Street into negative territory.
Hong Kong stocks suffered the sharpest losses, falling 1.3 percent, while Shanghai ended down 1.2 percent with news that China’s trade surplus with the US hit a record in August—adding to concerns Trump will push ahead with the tariffs.
“Chinese trade data and a ballooning record surplus with the US over the weekend won’t have helped. Time to be a little more realistic about this trade war and a little less sanguine methinks,” said Greg McKenna, chief market strategist at AxiTrader.
Singapore slipped 0.6 percent and Taipei shed 1.1 percent, while Bangkok and Jakarta were also sharply lower.
But Tokyo and Seoul both ended 0.3 percent higher.
There was some relief earlier Friday that Trump did not immediately impose levies on $200 billion of Chinese goods after the passing of a deadline for a public consultation.
The threatened tariffs would add to the $50 billion in imports already targeted and mark a major step up in the long-running battle between the world’s top two economies.
However, Trump told reporters on Air Force One later that day that “there’s another $267 billion ready to go on short notice if I want.”
That would cover virtually all the goods the United States imports from China. Beijing has threatened to retaliate against any measures out of Washington.
“Markets had some hope that as we got to that deadline there would be some concessions, but there’s really escalation,” Sean Fenton, director at Tribeca Investment Partners, told Bloomberg Television. With AFP