Philippines share prices closed 0.31 percent lower on Thursday as last-minute selling offset early gains, dealers said. The Philippine Stock Exchange composite index shed 7.49 points to close at 2,434.26 while the all-shares index shed 0.10 percent, or 1.60 points, to close at 1,574.27. A total of 953.755 million shares worth 2.43 billion pesos (50.16 million dollars) were traded.
Decliners led advancers 53 to 43, while 53 issues were unchanged. The peso traded at 48.44 to the US dollar. "We may see a slight recovery in the days ahead because of (semester-end) window dressing," Joseph Roxas of Eagle Equities told Dow Jones Newswires.
"After that, we may be in for rough sailing. The third quarter is usually bad for equities, I just don't know whether it will be very bad this year, or just bad," Roxas added. Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co fell 1.9 percent to 2,325 while Ayala Corp slipped 0.9 percent to 285 pesos.