PSEi falls over 2% ahead of GDP data
THE stock market retreated by more than 2 percent on Wednesday as investors sold off over pessimism on the Philippines’ gross domestic product (GDP) for the third quarter of 2018.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) dropped by 2.04 percent or 146.18 points to close at 7,033.93. All Shares declined by 1.67 percent or 73.16 points to finish at 4,298.92.
“The PSEi fell … ahead of tomorrow’s (Thursday’s) third-quarter GDP release. Price action for the index suggests that participants could be anticipating disappointing figures,” P2P Trade Online sales associate Gabriel Jose Perez said.
The Department of Finance expects third-quarter GDP to settle at 6.5 percent, while analysts polled by The Manila Times see an average of 6.2 percent.
Luis Limlingan, sales head at Regina Capital Development Corp., said market players repositioned ahead of the economic growth data, adding that the trade balance for September weighed on market sentiment.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the country’s trade balance hit its widest deficit in nine months as expansion in imports continued to surpass that of exports.
Imports grew by 26.1 percent year-on-year to $9.754 billion, while exports dropped by 2.6 percent to $5.827 billion.
The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) traced the contraction in exports to weak global growth.
Most sectoral results closed down, except for mining and oil, which climbed by 0.07 percent.
Volume turnover stood at 2.66 billion issues traded valued at P46.5 billion.
Losers led winners, 165 to 38, while 41 issues were unchanged.
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