Philippine shares close lower as Wall Street's dip sparks caution

Philippine shares close lower as Wall Street's dip sparks caution - UPDATE

	Published : Fri, 24 Aug 2007 06:22 By : Agencies Print this Story

MANILA (Thomson Financial) - Philippine shares closed lower Friday as Wall Street's weakness prompted investors to lock in recent gains ahead of a three-day weekend.

Philippine financial markets will be closed on Monday for a public holiday.

Manila's composite index lost 22.21 points or 0.7 percent at 3,206.94, off the day's low of 3,199.78. The 30-company index rose 11.1 percent from the previous week, after posting its biggest single-day point gain in seven years on Tuesday, rebounding after huge losses last week.

The broader all-share index fell 12.08 points or 0.6 percent to 2,052.44.

Out of 161 stocks traded, 81 declined, 34 advanced, while 46 stocks ended flat.

A total of 1.7 billion shares worth 3.5 billion pesos changed hands.

'Just when calm is coming back into the market, investor confidence dipped again,' said Ron Rodrigo, head of research at Unicapital Securities.

Rodrigo said comments made by the head of Countrywide Financial, the largest mortgage

lender in the US, that a housing slump could trigger a recession in the world's biggest economy,

revived investor jitters.

'It just shows that we have to proceed with caution, we are not yet out of the woods,' said Rodrigo.

'Recent initiatives by subprime companies to clean up their act, along with the support of central banks were taken positively by the market, but it doesn't mean that the problems have been swept away in just one go,' said Lawrence de Leon, analyst at Accord Capital Equities.

The day's biggest decliners include conglomerate Ayala Corp which lost 7.50 pesos or 1.6 percent at 450 pesos. Its lending arm, Bank of the Philippine Islands, slipped two pesos or 3.3

percent to 58 pesos.

SM Investments Corp, the holding company of tycoon Henry Sy, gave up five pesos or 1.4

percent at 347.50 pesos.

Market leader Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co shed five pesos or 0.2 percent at 2,540

pesos.

(1 US dollar = 46.74 pesos)

rocel.felix@thomson.com

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Philippine shares close lower as Wall Street's dip sparks caution - UPDATE