The stock market slumped for the fourth straight day Wednesday on sharp losses in Shanghai and a drop in oil prices.
The Philippine Stock Exchange Index fell 13.72 points, or 0.2 percent, to 7,201.37 on a value turnover of P6.1 billion. Losers beat gainers, 104 to 89, with 40 issues unchanged.
Globe Telecom Inc., the second-biggest telecommunications company, dropped 2.6 percent to P2,140, while Metro Pacific Investments Corp., which is into water and electricity distribution, toll roads and hospitals, lost 1.5 percent to P5.81.
First Gen Corp. of the Lopez Group tumbled 3.9 percent to P21, while Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. fell 1.4 percenbt to P81.85.
The rest of Asian shares, meanwhile, mostly fell. After an edgy start to the day, investors brushed off another strong lead from Wall Street and Europe to cash in after Tuesday’s sharp gains.
Oil, which has been center stage this week after the collapse of weekend output limit talks, tumbled Wednesday after the industrial action in Kuwait was called off as union leaders look to negotiate a pay deal.
The walkout slashed Kuwaiti output and provided some much-needed support to the commodity on world markets Monday and Tuesday, largely offsetting the failure of the talks between Opec and non-Opec giants aimed at freezing production.
“The size of the disruption, had the strike persisted, would have been quite significant,” Ric Spooner, a chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, said. “It took quite a lot of oil out of production.”
In afternoon trade West Texas Intermediate was down 2.3 percent and Brent lost two percent.
On equity markets Tokyo’s Nikkei ended the day 0.2 percent higher, with speculation that Japan’s central bank will unveil fresh stimulus following last week’s double earthquake boosting sentiment.
Hong Kong ended 0.9 percent lower, Seoul shed 0.3 percent, Singapore fell 0.5 percent and Taipei dived 1.4 percent. There were also losses Jakarta and Bangkok.
Mitsubishi Motors crashed more than 15 percent on reports it had conducted faulty emission tests. The news comes as German car titan Volkswagen struggles to recover from its own massive emissions-cheating scandal, which hammered its reputation.
Sydney gained 0.5 percent and Wellington 0.4 percent.
However, the losses outweighed the gains and Shanghai was the biggest loser, shifting 2.3 percent.
Analysts said there was speculation dealers were concerned that a string of positive recent data on the world’s number two economy, China, could prevent authorities there from unveiling more stimulus measures.
But Wei Wei, an analyst at Huaxi Securities Co. in Shanghai, told Bloomberg News: “We haven’t heard anything particular for the decline and it’s strange and surprising that the market is dropping at such a fast and steep rate.”
The unease on trading floors seeped through to foreign exchange markets, where the dollar retreated against the safe haven yen, while emerging market units gave up early gains or turned negative. With AFP