Local share prices continued to drop yesterday as investors await the meeting of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)'s Monetary Board later this week.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) dropped by 0.69 percent or 47.52 points to settle at 6,791.24, while the broader All Shares index closed 0.31 percent or 11.31 points lower at 3,631.65.

'Investors continued to stay away from the local equities market on concerns over the upcoming monetary-policy setting meeting of the Monetary Board,' Luis Limlingan of Regina Capital said.

Earlier this week, Moody's Analytics said the BSP may raise interest rates by 50 basis points to six percent at its Feb. 16 meeting.

'Odds are high that the monetary policy tightening cycle will run for longer in the Philippines than elsewhere in Asia given stubbornly elevated inflation,' Moody's Analytics said.

Inflation in January registered at 8.7 percent, the highest in 14 years or since the 9.1 percent recorded in November 2008.

Claire Alviar of Philstocks Financials explained that chartwise, the market is trending downward in the short-run, breaching the 6,800 level.

'If it fails to return above the 6,800 support level, the next immediate dynamic support will be the 50-day EMA (exponential moving average) while the next major one would be the 6,600 level,'Alviar said.

All sectoral indices closed in the red, with the property index posting the largest decline at 0.93 percent or 27.8 points to settle at 2,956.02.

A total of 76,827 trades valued at P7.37 billion were made, while volume turnover stood at 969.2 million.Declines outnumbered advances 103 to 84, while 43 remained unchanged.

 

Copyright © 2022 PhilSTAR Daily, Inc Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).