PHL share prices close mixed amid unimproved US jobs data

Philippine share prices closed mixed on Monday as investors weighed on the unimproved employment numbers in the US, the world's largest economy. The benchmark 30-company Philippine Stock Exchange index slipped 10.35 points or 0.23 percent to 4,382.56 while the all shares climbed 13.82 points or 0.45 percent to 3,071.93. Losers dominated gainers, 89 to 66, while 34 stocks closed unchanged. Save for Mining & Oil, which leaped 2.62 percent, the other five sectoral indices closed in the red led by Property's 1.34-percent dip. Volume traded reached 8.57 billion shares valued at P3.54 billion. "The local main composite index is currently moving sideways, tugging around its medium term 50-day exponential moving average," AB Capital said in a market note posted online. Last Friday, Wall Street tumbled with the Dow losing 2.20 percent and Nasdaq sliding 2.58 percent, following a report that unemployment rate in the US remained unchanged at 9.1 percent, indicating that the economy failed to create more jobs. Save for the Jakarta Composite, all Asian markets were trading lower as of mid-trade Monday. Suffering the worst were South Korea's Seoul Composite with a 2.94-percent dip and Singapore's Straits Times with a 2.52-percent drop. In the local bourse, three of the five most active stocks retreated. Lepanto consolidated Mining Co. "A", the session's top traded, added P0.07 or 4.76 percent at P1.54. Telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. plunged P16 or 0.66 percent to P2,402. Boulevard Holdings Inc. gained P0.045 or 10.71 percent at P0.465. Philex Mining Corp. rose P0.55 or 2.04 percent to P27.55. SM Investments Corp., the parent firm of SM group, slipped P3 or 0.54 percent to P555. --CMA/OMG, GMA News