Wednesday, May 24, 2006
US interest rate jitters persist, shares decline .5% (1:30 p.m.)
MANILA -- Philippine shares declined Wednesday for the second straight session as concerns over higher US interest rates continued to fuel selling.
The benchmark 30-company Philippine Stock Exchange Index fell 11.78 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,252.58, its worst finish since Apr. 26, when it closed at 2,247.14. On Tuesday, the index plunged 4 percent.
"The market is in a correction phase, so it's normal for investors to be concerned over higher interest rates as an excuse to take profit and then wait for the dust to settle," said Citiseconline investment analyst Mark Alan Canizares.
He said it was inevitable for the market to undergo a technical correction after its rapid ascent earlier this month.
Blue chip Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. was the most actively traded stock, shedding 0.3 percent to close at P1,955, in step with the 0.4 percent loss suffered by the company's American depositary receipts in New York Tuesday.
Other active stocks included Equitable PCI Bank, which fell 15 percent to P60, after its chairwoman Corazon dela Paz said Tuesday following the bank's annual stockholders meeting that the offer of Banco de Oro to merge with affiliate Equitable PCI Bank had expired and was no longer being considered by the board.
Banco de Oro, the country's seventh largest lender by assets, closed unchanged at P37.
Concerns over higher interest rates weighed on property stocks Ayala Land, which fell 2 percent to 12.50 pesos, and SM Prime, 2.6 percent lower at P7.50.
Limiting the market's loss was bargain hunting in Globe Telecom, up 5.4 percent at P885. Philex Mining A and B were each up 5.3 percent at P3.95 on the overnight recovery in world copper
prices.(AP) |
