MANILA – The Philippines' main stocks index slipped for the third consecutive day and ended Thursday at the 6,900-level while the peso ended sideways against the greenback due in part to the United States' Thanksgiving holiday.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) shed 1.05 percent, or 73.76 points, to 6,927.75 points.
All the other indices trailed the main gauge, with All Shares down by 1.10 percent, or 46.19 points, to 4,138.09 points.
Mining and Oil posted the biggest drop among the sectoral indices with 2.78 percent.
It was followed by Services, 1.97 percent; Property, 1.38 percent; Holding Firms, 1.17 percent; Financials, 1.08 percent; and Industrial, 0.12 percent.
Volume totaled 3.28 billion shares amounting to PHP15.49 billion.
Losers led gainers at 148 to 69 while 46 shares were unchanged.
Regina Capital Development Corporation head of sales Luis Limlingan attributed the sustained negative close of the PSEi to window dressing partly due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US.
“US stocks also took a breather after soaring past the 30k-level the other day, and over undelightful unemployment data,” he said.
US’ Labor Department has reported that applications for unemployment benefits rose to 778,000 last week from around 748,000 in the previous week.
On the other hand, the peso ended the day’s trade at 48.115 to a US dollar from 48.13 a day ago.
It opened the day flat at 48.11 and traded between 48.12 and 48.08. This resulted in an average level of 48.102 for the day.
Volume totaled USD575.71 million, higher than the previous session’s USD565.27 million. (PNA)
