Roundup: Philippine bourse closes lower following U.S. equities last Friday

The Philippine stock market opened the week in the negative after the poor performance of the U.S. equities on Friday.

The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 0.55 percent or 39.50 points to 7,092.41, while the broader all-share index declined by 0.53 percent or 21.74 points to 4,054.86.

Trading volume reached 1.51 billion shares worth 6.84 billion Philippine pesos (147.12 million U.S. dollars) with 110 stocks declining, 71 advancing, and 35 were unchanged.

Of the six counters, only the industrial sector bucked the trend.

"U.S. stocks fell Friday night as investors took an alternate view of the U.S. Federal Reserves' decision to put rate tweak on hold last Thursday," analyst Justino Calaycay of Accord Capital Equities Corp. said in his daily stock market comment.

Calaycay said the U.S. Fed's reason - concerns over the stresses by economies overseas - has sent most investors opting to take a safer stand.

Similarly, an attempt by a Chinese diplomat to assure the world that the rout in equities is not reflective of the state of its economy did not seem to have the intended effect.

"Following last week's five-day advance it would have been fair to expect a spillover, if not excitement from investors to push the measure back into positive territory. As it turned out however, the absence of a strong positive inducement over the weekend activated what seems like the 'default' sentiment of the market," Calaycay said.

As a result, the local barometer failed to hold a 27-point opening surge and joined its regional peers.

Stocks in the 30-company index closed mixed. Among those sold down were DMCI Holdings, Inc. and Ayala Corp. Investors picked up shares of SM Investments Corp. Endi