MANILA – The peso sustained its rise to its best against the US dollar since November 2016 while the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) ended its four-day rally on Friday on risk-off sentiments.
The main equities index declined by 0.34 percent, or 20.87 points, to 6,076.91 points.
However, All Shares rose by 0.12 percent, or 4.45 points, to 3,596.19 points.
Most of the sectoral indices gained during the day, led by Mining and Oil, which increased by 1.72 percent.
Financials registered an uptick of 0.47 percent, Industrial by 0.15 percent, and Property by 0.04 percent.
Services declined by 0.98 percent and Holding Firms by 0.69 percent.
Volume totaled 6.8 billion shares, amounting to PHP9.5 billion.
Losers led gainers at 97 to 88 shares, while 56 shares were unchanged.
Luis Limlingan, Regina Capital Development Corp. head of sales, said new weighting in the main stocks index, along with negative sentiments on the second proposed stimulus program in the US, has affected the PSEi.
Limlingan, however, said, “Better jobless claims helped curtail losses.”
The US Department of Labor reported that job losses in the week ending August 8 reached 963,000, the first time since March that the level fell to less than one million.
At home, the composition in the PSEi has been changed, with Emperador, Inc. replacing Semirara Mining and Power Corp.
The change will take effect starting August 17.
Meanwhile, the local currency finished the day at 48.765 from 48.84 on Thursday.
It opened the day at 48.83, sideways from its 48.9 start in the previous day, trading between 48.85 and 48.75 and averaging 48.805.
Volume totaled USD599.65 million, lower than the previous day’s USD632.1 million. (PNA)
