Philippines share prices closed down 3.4 percent on Tuesday amid soaring oil prices, regional stock market weakness and following a Wall Street slide last week, dealers said. The composite index fell 93.75 points to 2,645.95 points. The all-share index fell 2.6 percent to 1,667.04 points.
Only eight stocks advanced compared to 95 decliners and 42 that were unchanged. Turnover rose to 4.25 billion pesos (95.67 million dollars) compared to 2.297 billion pesos on the previous trading day. There was no trading on Monday due to a public holiday. The local currency traded at 44.419 to the dollar.
The sharp downturn was "a reaction to the significant increase in oil prices and the weakness of the US market," said April Lee Tan of Citiseconline. "It all started from the US market. It fell last Friday and even though it rebounded on Monday. It wasn't really a lot," she remarked.
Telecom giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co fell 3.4 percent to 2,435 pesos. Property developer Megaworld Corp fell 9.89 percent to 1.64 pesos. Food and beverage giant San Miguel Corp saw its A shares, available only to Filipinos, remain unchanged at 41.50 pesos while its B shares fell 2.38 percent to 41 pesos.