Philippine stocks slip on lack of fresh leads

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The Philippine stock market finished lower yesterday, snapping a three-day winning streak amid a lack of major news.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index closed at 6,305.85, down by 3.10 points or 0.05 percent.

The broader All Shares index, meanwhile, lost 0.36 points or 0.01 percent to end at 3,351.66.

The sectoral gauges were also mixed but the majority ended in negative territory. Only services and holding firms finished in the green.

Total value turnover reached P5.7 billion. Market breadth was negative, 92 to 79 while 50 issues were unchanged.

Luis Limlingan of Regina Capital said investors are still waiting for signals from overseas, with a porticular focus on the US and its trajectory toward recovery.

'Despite the losses in the US last night, the past five weeks of consecutive gains means that all three stock indexes are still on track to end the quarter and year with big gains,' Limlingan said.

Other markets in Asia, meanwhile, advanced yesterday after most stocks slipped on Wall Street following a mixed set of reports on the US economy.

The gains followed selloffs the day before amid worries about the health of China's economy, the world's second largest.

US stocks and Treasury yields wavered after reports showed that employers advertised far fewer job openings at the end of October than expected, while growth for services businesses accelerated more last month than expected.

That kept alive questions about whether the US economy can pull off a perfect landing where it snuffs out high inflation but avoids a recession.

With inflation down from its peak two summers ago, Wall Street is hopeful the Federal Reserve may finally be done with its market-shaking hikes to interest rates and could soon turn to cutting rates. That could help the economy avoid a recession and give a boost to all kinds of investment prices.

Traders widely expect the Federal Reserve to hold its key interest rate steady at its next meeting next week, before potentially cutting rates in March, according to data from CME Group.