PSEi plunges anew on US-China worries

Credit to Author: ANGELICA BALLESTEROS, TMT| Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2018 16:21:29 +0000

THE stock market extended a decline to a fourth consecutive day on Monday, tracking a regional decline said to have been spurred by renewed concerns over a host of issues.

The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) lost 112.85 points or 1.51 percent or to close at 7,348.21 while the wider All Shares declined by 1.22 percent or 54.74 points to finish at 4,441.14.

“Equities markets were down all Asia including here in the PSE as worries that a rise in tensions between Washington and Beijing could ruin the chances of a trade deal,” Eagle Equities Inc. research head Christopher Mangun said.

“From a technical standpoint, this is a healthy pullback from the rally that we have seen in the last three weeks,” he claimed.

In a separate comment, P2P Trade Online head of online trading Arbee Lu said the stock market was unlikely to see a year-end trading boost given the lack of catalysts.

Last week’s arrest in Canada of Huawei Chief Finance Officer Meng Wanzhou has threatened to reignite the US-China trade war and while US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer downplayed the impact on Sunday, he also said that March 1 was a “hard deadline” for reaching a trade deal.

Both countries are currently observing a 90-day trade truce following tit-for-tat tariff exchanges earlier this year.

Wall Street plunged by over 2 percent last Friday and regional markets followed suit on Monday, with Tokyo down a marked 2.1 percent. Hong Kong shed 1.2 percent and Singapore and Seoul each gave up 1.1 percent percent while Shanghai fell 0.8 percent.

In addition to the US-China trade row and Huawai, investors were said to be also worrying over signs of weakness in the US and Chinese economies and Brexit.

In Manila, all sectoral indices settled in the red, with holding firms down the most by 2.11 percent.

More than 2.25 billion issues valued at P14.8 billion changed hands.

Losers led winners, 134 to 59, while 43 issues were unchanged.

With a report from AFP

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