Roundup: Philippine bourse closes lower on oil price drop

The Philippine stock market suffered another blow on Thursday over concerns in the continued drop of oil prices.

The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index dived by 2.80 percent or 175.33 points to 6,084.28, while the broader all-share index declined by 2.39 percent or 86.04 points to 3,519.58.

Trading volume reached 867 million shares worth 7.39 billion Philippine pesos (154.54 million U.S. dollars) with 136 stocks declining, 34 advancing and 40 unchanged.

All six counters were down.

Global oil prices further dropping to the 27 U.S. dollars-per-barrel mark is putting a tighter squeeze on profits, analyst Justino Calaycay of Accord Capital Equities Corp. said in his daily stock market comment.

Likewise, fears that the U.S. economy may be losing some steam with an unexpected slide in new home constructions suggesting a slack in this economic segment's growth momentum.

"Prudence dictates we keep to the sidelines until the dust settles. We may miss some opportunities of a rebound, but taking stock out of the risks is our top priority at this time," he said.

Calaycay said that as the market approaches the 6,000 mark and as talks abound of a higher probability of further drops, investors are quite expectedly moving to or staying at the sidelines.

"The hole is too deep, relative to levels at the start of the year, to cut losses, the negative momentum too strong and positive leads scarce paralysis is beginning to set in," he said.

Most stocks in the 30-company index were down. These include Ayala Corp., Megaworld Corp. and BDO Unibank, Inc. Endit