PSEi plunges amid global anxiety over Euro debt

Prices of Philippine stocks fell on Tuesday, reflecting global anxiety over the Euro debt zone and the possibility of another recession for the US. The benchmark 30-company Philippine Stock Exchange index plunged 79.48 points or 1.81 percent to 4,303.08 while the all shares tumbled 43.08 points or 1.40 percent to 3,028.85. Market breadth was negative with 122 gainers trouncing 21 losers and 26 stocks that closed unchanged. All six sectoral indices closed in the red led by Financials' 2.57-percent decline and Mining & Oil's 2.25-percent slump. Volume traded reached 8.21 billion valued at P5.27 billion. "The present market can be described as being cautiously bullish more than being generally bearish. Investors obviously find sufficient justification to keep stocks near the core of their investment radars, particularly in the context of the domestic macro- and micro-fundamentals. This positive sentiment is, however, capped by external factors - weak US economy, Europe's debt woes, China's inflation, Middle East tensions and Japan's recession, to name a few," said Justino Calaycay Jr., Accord Capital Equities trader. On Monday, European markets suffered huge sell off with Germany's DAX slumping 5.28 percent and France's CAC 40 shedding 4.73 percent. Wall Street was closed for the Labor Day holiday, but last Friday, the unemployment rate in the US showed that the economy failed to create additional jobs. Worries also continued to hobble global markets over the ability of Greece to meet requirements to allow it to receive aid to avoid defaulting. As of mid-trade Tuesday, Asian markets were also trading lower with Taiwan and Japan leading the decline. In the local bourse, four of the five most active stocks retreated. Lepanto Consolidated Mining Co. "A", the session's top traded, slid P0.04 or 2.60 percent to P1.50. Marcventures Holdings Inc. rose P0.11 or 5.37 percent to P2.16. Diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. slipped P5 or 4 percent to P120. Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., one of the country's largest lenders in terms of assets, dipped P2.60 or 3.56 percent to P70.45. Telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. lost P20 or 0.83 percent at P2,382. --CMA/OMG, GMA News