By Joann Villanueva (PNA)
MANILA — The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) fell to the 6,900-level Friday and the peso made a u-turn in apparent reaction to a statement from the US Federal Reserve hinting that further tightening is to come.
The PSEi ended the week at 6,968.82 points, down 0.95 percent or 66.89 points.
Bank of the Philippine Island (BPI), on its Global Markets Daily Market Wrap issued at the end of this trading week, attributed the index’s slide to “higher global interest rates and economic slowdown from major economies.”
After the November 7-8 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Fed, in a statement, announced that the Committee kept the federal funds rate at 2-2.25 percent but noted “further gradual increases” since labor market remains strong and inflation is near the 2 percent objective.
Meantime, Regina Capital Managing Director Luis Limlingan said the probability of a Fed rate hike in December is now at 74.4 percent.
He also cited the drop in oil prices and “some rebalancing” by companies as additional factors that drove the drop of PSEi.
He said price of crude in the international market fell 1.5 percent to USD60.73 per barrel.
This drop, he said, was pinned further by reports of higher-than-forecast rise of stockpiles, he said.
The negative close of the main index was mirrored by all the other counters, with the broader All Shares slashed by 0.47 percent, or 19.99 points, to 4,269.88 points.
Services registered the highest decline with 2.04 percent and was followed by Financials, 1.21 percent; Industrial, 1.04 percent; Property, 0.80 percent; Mining and Oil, 0.28 percent; and Holding Firms, 0.12 percent.
Volume reached 1.165 billion stocks amounting to PHP5.96 billion.
Gainers reversed the situation after it surpassed losers at 105 to 84 while 53 shares were unchanged.
Also, the peso ended the week at 52.96 after improving to 52.57 Thursday.
BPI attributed this to the improvement of the US dollar after days of weakness.
For the day, the local unit opened at 52.87, little changed from the 52.83 a day ago.
It traded between 52.97 and 52.83, bringing the day’s average to 52.923.
Volume reached USD897.5 million, lower than the USD1.35 billion in the previous session.
The currency pair is seen to trade between 52.85 and 53.05 on Monday.
