Miguel R. Camus / Reporter
Philippine stocks
slid anew on Monday as investors continued to liquidate positions in
what some analyst are already calling “panic selling.”
The
Philippine benchmark Index lost another 4.24 percent, or 164.74 points,
to 3,721.22, said to be the lowest close since September 2, 2010.
The
benchmark measure had already declined over 18 percent from the year’s
record high of 4,550.52 in August mainly as fears mount that the global
economy could enter another recession.
World
stock markets also remained volatile as investors grew increasingly
convinced that Greece would default on its debts, an event that
economists say has the potential to worsen a global downturn.
Stocks were
mixed in early European trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.5 percent to
5,040.61. But Germany’s DAX gained 1.6 percent to 5,280.93 and the
CAC-40 in Paris gained 0.9 percent to 2,836.70.
Wall
Street was headed higher, with the Dow Jones industrial futures up 0.2
percent to 10,716. S&P 500 futures rose 0.4 percent at 1,134.
Negative
sentiment was most intense in Asia, where markets closed sharply lower.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slid 2.2 percent to 8,374.13—its lowest close
since April 2009. South Korea’s Kospi fell 2.6 percent to end at
1,652.71 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.5 percent to 17,407.80.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 receded 1 percent to 3,863.90.
“People
expected over the weekend that European finance ministers and
[International Monetary Fund] officials would probably announce some
concrete plans to stabilize the euro zone. But it came out empty again,”
said Jackson Wong, vice president at Tanrich Securities in Hong Kong.
“Everything
is so negative right now. People are waiting for a positive catalyst to
get back into the market,” Wong said. “The road ahead is very unclear.”
A stubbornly strong yen also weighed on Japan’s export sector because it makes Japanese goods more expensive abroad.
“There
are already signs of panic going on and all markets are being affected
which during a normal situation does not happen. Some investors are no
longer asking about fundamentals anymore,” April Lee-Tan, research head
at stock brokerage firm CitisecOnline, said in a phone interview on
Monday.
Tan
said selling could have intensified after the PSEi index fell below the
3,800 psychological barrier. “Whatever bargain hunting there was
disappeared. They probably decided to liquidate all positions and wait
on the sidelines,” she said.
Tan
said the next psychological support is at the 3,500 level. At that
level, the PSE index is valued at about 12 times earnings, regarded as a
“cheap” level historically, she said.
Joey
Roxas, president of stock brokerage firm Eagle Equities Inc., said
there is still room for the market to move lower, although selling could
slow down in the latter part of this week.
Roxas
said part of the sell-off was due to then-“expensive” PSE index
catching up with losses in the rest of the region alongside fund
redemptions.
“We
are already in a downtrend,” Roxas said, adding that investors looking
to enter the market could take small positions at this point but should
hold back from making big investments given the current level of
uncertainty.
Meanwhile,
the broader all-shares index also declined 2.94 percent to 2,700.58.
Volume slightly slowed from Friday at P9.39 billion, while foreign
selling intensified to P852.37 million.
All subsectors ended in the red, again led by the mining and oil sector, which declined 8.22 percent.
No comments:
Post a Comment