Local shares edged down on Wednesday, as investors priced in troubling rumblings in Wall Street, a new virus variant, and global economic recession concerns.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index closed in the red, shedding 0.81% to finish at 6540.24. The broader All Shares index fared poorly as well, dropping 0.41%.

Most of the subindices finished trading in negative territory as well.

Luis Limlingan, head of sales at local brokerage Regina Capital, attributed the market's gloomy performance on Wednesday to a host of factors.

'Philippine shares edged lower following First Republic Bank's statement that its deposits dropped -40% y/y to $104.5 bn in 1Q23, which reignited concerns about the banking sector,' he said in a Viber message.

Limlingan noted that local investors were anticipating some window dressing on Friday as well as sentiment clouded by virus concerns.

'Another factor that caused investors to stay on the sidelines was the detection of the first case of Omicron subvariant XBB1.16 or Arcturus. The latter has been detected in 33 countries,' he added.

Health authorities confirmed they detected the first case in the country in Western Visayas.

That said, regional markets did not fare so well either. Hong Kong, Jakarta, Mumbai and Bangkok were up in afternoon trade, while Shanghai and Taipei were more or less flat. Tokyo, Sydney, Wellington, Seoul, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur were all down.

At home, foreign investors sold P192.9 million more shares than they bought in the local stock market. A total of 766.9 million stocks, valued at P5.4 billion, switched hands on Wednesday. - Ramon Royandoyan with AFP

 

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