The market loosed its ground today as the index is down by -1.27 % due to profit taking. Index was up 4 days in a row and what could have been the 5th day ended in red. This is after the government announced that the remaining days of August will shift the quarantine classification from ECQ to the less business restrictive MECQ.

Last night Spokesperson Harry Roque has announced that the quarantine classification is M-ECQ for Metro Manila.  IATF placed Metro Manila under modified ECQ (M-ECQ) from 21-31 Aug.  Spokesman Roque said LGUs may still impose granular lockdowns covering smaller areas within a city or town.

On the charts, Index closed to 6,633.2 with a net foreign selling value of -175Million, indicating a short pull back for the market

On the other side, S&P downgraded its Philippine economic outlook for the year 2021 from 5-6% projection last month to a notch lower at around 4-5%. This is on top of the recently implemented Enhanced Community Quarantines and typhoons that visited the country for the past few months.

However on a weekly basis the market is continuing its reversal direction as the latest reports for the first half of the year for most of the companies showed optimistic results coupled with the second quarterly GDP of 11.8% signified that the Philippines has exited from the recession as compared to last year performance.

S&P is expecting better growth for the year 2023 (7.4%) and 2024 (7.3%) which is almost similar to government projections of 6-8%

Asian indexes showing mixed reactions but major indexes like Japan and China are in deep red

The PSE market seem to disregard the upcoming decision by the government whether to stay in ECQ or move down a bit from its strict restrictions to MECQ. Malacanang is set to announce the remaining days of August quarantine classification by Friday,August 20,2021, according to Spokesperson Harry Roque.

It remains to be seen whether the palace will favor the lighter MECQ classification with the rising cases of people affected with Covid variant, especially that we are dealing with the Delta variant. Its strong uptrend move broke the immediate resistance at 6,600 key lelvel.

The index close at 6,718 very close now the 6,800 resistance level. This is the fourth straight day that the index ended in green.

Alliance global holdings (AGI) led the market uptick during the pre close period as it surged up to 8.05% following the news that its subsidiary Emperador will list in SGX.

EMP is keen to push through with a secondary listing on the main board of the Singapore Exchange (SGX), with its board of directors already signaling management to accomplish the requirements as soon as practicable.

1AGI 8.05%

2AEV 3.90%

3JGS 3.46%

4CNVRG 2.76%

5LTG 2.76%

6BLOOM 2.59%

7RLC 2.45%

8PGOLD 2.44%

9RRHI 2.20%

10ALI 2.06%

11MER 1.75%

Outside of the index Ginebra San Miguel (GSMI) followed the closed with 13.91% gain for the day.

Mining sector still still on the red as it dropped again by -1.82%

Outside of the Philippine stock market, Asian indexes were all in red following the correction being felt across US and Europe. Majority of the indexes are in red.