SHARE prices closed lower on Thursday, the last trading day of the month, but volume surged to more than P20 billion on window dressing of companies and the effect of MSCI’s rebalancing on local listed firms.
The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) gave up 14.58 points to close at 7,367.85 points.
The main index reached a peak of 7,482, but late selling pulled down the index.
“The last-minute selling was on account of MSCI’s rebalancing. Note that volume today was extra heavy, with 77 percent foreign participation as against the usual 52 percent,” said Arbee B. Lu, head of marketing and business development, of Papa Securities Inc.
Total volume of trade reached P20.08 billion on 1.32 billion shares traded.
Luis Limlingan, managing director at Regina Capital Development Corp., said the last-minute selling was also due to MSCI’s rebalancing of its basket, which local fund managers track.
“Philippine shares finished slightly lower, but overall, closed the month on another strong rally on the combination of window dressing, MSCI rebalancing,” he said. “A couple of weeks ago, the MSCI released the new weighting for its Philippine index, and most fund managers aligned with the portfolio. The biggest change was Metrobank, which saw huge fund flows this week,” he said.
Metropolitan Bank and Trust Corp. was the day’s most active with value of trade reaching P4.6 billion, but it shed P1.25 to P74.60. BDO Unibank Inc. gained P1.10 to P130.20. Ayala Land Inc. rose P1.40 to P41.65; SM Investments Corp. fell P6.50 to P908.50; Ayala Corp. was up P3 to P951; and SM Prime Holdings Inc. added P0.70 to P34.70.
Gainers led decliners 112 to 78 and 52 shares were unchanged.
Most of the subindices were down led by the broader All Shares index that shed 2.05 points to 4,441.33; the Financials index gained 4.62 to 1,758.25; the Industrial index lost 55.65 to 10,655.14; the Holding Firms index fell 51.99 to 7,230.90; the Services index was down 9.63 to 1,401.55; the Mining and Oil index decreased 22.29 to 8,487.63. The Property index rose 59.47 to 3,601.14.