Shares tumble 23 pts on fears of interest rate hike

Share prices sloped downwards yesterday as the political brouhaha over jueteng and a looming hike in interest rates kept investors mostly on the sidelines, despite a slight recovery in the peso’s value against the dollar.

The main index lost another 23.27 points or 1.8 percent to finish at 1,271.75. The thin turnover of P569.554 million was dominated by selloffs, with 67 stocks on the losing side compared with 19 advancers and 24 unchanged issues.

However, the broader all-shares index again managed to buck the downtrend as it inched 0.1 percent to 654.55 largely on gains in Canadian insurance giants Manulife and Sun Life.

Manulife went up P25 to P1,075 while Sun Life rose P30 to P915.

The mining sector likewise defied the negative sentiment, adding 0.78 percent due to the slight improvement in gold and copper prices abroad, which, coupled with the devalued peso, has primed up mining firms for better export earnings prospects.

At the Philippine Dealing System, the peso bounced back against the dollar by midday, registering at P48.498:$1.

But still, the market’s movement was weighed down heavily by the growing clamor for President Estrada’s resignation or impeachment as the issue on the jueteng payoff drags on.

A frantic Monetary Board did not help lift the market either, as it considered alternative options – including the issuance of high yielding Bangko Sentral bills – in its efforts to stem the peso’s freefall, raising concerns of higher interest rates.

Most blue chips went down in the red, except for BPI and Meralco B which both rose by 50 centavos. PLDT lost P10 to P765; Equitable PCI declined by P2 to P56; SM Prime shed off 20 centavos to P3.95; Ayala Corp. fell by 10 centavos to P5.90; Metrobank dropped P1 to P166; and Benpres slipped six centavos to P2.44.

Gaming stocks were again dumped in reaction to the negative publicity generated by the jueteng issue as well as President Estrada’s resolve to steer government away from gambling.

On-line bingo proponent Fairmont Holdings (more popularly known as BW Resources) slid 15 centavos to just 80 centavos while jai-alai franchise Belle Corp. fell 11 centavos to 61 centavos.

Even new listings were not spared by the bloodbath. Globe Telecom’s Philippine Deposit Receipts (PDRs), untraded when it was listed last Monday, snapped P125 down from its offering price of P725 to end at P600.

Active Alliance, a Subic-based manufacturer of printed circuit boards for information technology (IT) products, managed to hold at its IPO price of P1 per share upon listing yesterday, although deals made up a meager 0.4 percent of its total share volume.