Philippines share prices will likely track Wall Street next week amid increased volatility in the wake of the global equity sell-off in the past weeks, dealers said Friday.
They said investors will want to see how Wall Street and other markets react to the key US employment report due out later Friday - strong figures would help confirm this week's recovery but a bad surprise could spell more trouble.
For the week to March 9, the Philippine Stock Exchange composite index lost 40.52 points or 1.29 percent to 3,140.34.
Average daily volume slipped to 9.1 billion shares worth 4.86 billion pesos (100.14 million dollars) from 17.3 billion shares worth 6.92 billion pesos in the previous week.
"The movement will still be largely influenced by the US market, similar to what happened this week," said April Tan of Citiseconline.
"It really depends on what happens in the US. If the United States shows a sudden drop ... then I think a substantial drop could happen here," she warned.
She remarked that "coincidentally, when the global market dropped (on March 5), the (local) market was also overbought technically and it really was begging for a correction."
The local share market "needs to consolidate for awhile to lay the foundations for another strong performance," she said. She recalled that after a similar downturn in May 2006, "it took three months before the market broke out of a consolidation."
Tan stressed that there was nothing wrong with the Philippines' economic fundamentals and said "we might see some pleasant surprises when companies release their first quarter earnings."
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