PSE Index Breaches Support Level

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) breached its support level Thursday at 6,400 points, with only the holding firms posting a small gain to close at 6,371.75 points, down by 39.66 points or 0.62 percent.

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Index, May 30, 2024

Most of the blue chips, especially the top 10 most active stocks, flirted with higher share prices only to succumb late to their day's lowest price as investors sold their positions, resulting in the breach of the support level.

The only consolation was the uptick in market bellwether SM Investments, which ended the day 15 pesos higher at 885 pesos, its top price point after it hit a low of 858 pesos.

Losers swamped the market, with the holding firms nosing up before the close, 13 minutes before the end of trade, to buck the trend. Financials lost 0.69 percent, industrials by 1.27 percent, services by 1.14 percent, property by 1.49 percent, and mining and oil by 0.70 percent.

Holding firms rose by 0.38 percent.

The index hit 6,314.54, its lowest, before nosing up a bit. There were 132 losers, 37 gainers, and 52 shares unchanged. Value turnover amounted to 5.8 billion pesos, with net foreign selling of 795 million pesos on foreign buying of 2.939 billion pesos and foreign selling of 3.735 billion pesos.

BDO Unibank was the most active with 783 million pesos, going up by 30 centavos to 130.50 pesos.

Other gainers were Semirara Mining, Emperador, Dito CME, Aboitiz Equity, GT Capital, Apex Mining, OceanaGold, and Philodrill, while those unchanged were ICTSI, AgriNurture, Century Food, DoubleDragon, Belle Corp., Wilcon Depot, Nickel Asia, and Oriental Petroleum.

Among the losers were SM Prime, which had a high of 27.10 pesos before closing at 26.05 pesos for a 50 centavo loss; Jollibee Foods, with a high of 223.80 pesos but closing 5 pesos down to 216 pesos; Bank of PI, up at 121.90 pesos but ending 60 centavos lower to 120.20 pesos; and Metrobank, up at 67.90 pesos but ending 1.95 pesos down to 65.05 pesos.

Also in the red were Meralco, down by 17 pesos to 352.20 pesos but having a high of 372 pesos; and Ayala Corp., with a high of 614.50 pesos but closing at 598 pesos for a 17 peso decline.