THE stock market could head lower this week given lingering corruption issues, a weak peso and renewed global trade tensions, analysts said.<\/p>\n
The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) closed at 6,037.79 last week, down 1.16 percent week on week and 7.52 percent lower since the start of the year.<\/p>\n
Philstocks Financial Inc. research manager Japhet Tantiangco said the market\u2019s trajectory remained \u201cbearishly biased\u201d as weak turnover and subdued sentiment reflected investor caution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe market is still on a downtrend as corruption issues and the peso\u2019s weakening continue to weigh. Trading remains tepid, implying weak investor confidence,\u201d Tantiangco said.<\/p>\n
The market also remains undervalued, he added, with the PSEi\u2019s price-to-earnings ratio (P\/E) at 10.1 times \u2014 below its five-year historical average of 17.3 and the regional average of 18.6.<\/p>\n
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By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAs of the moment, the PSEi still has the lowest PE ratio among peers,\u201d Tantiangco said. \u201cWhile there are opportunities for bargain hunting, the local bourse may still move with a downward bias.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBearish sentiment is expected to linger, fueled by concerns over the Philippines\u2019 corruption issues and its impact on our economic growth outlook.\u201d<\/p>\n Investors will again be watching the peso\u2019s performance against the dollar and Tantiangco said, \u201ca further depreciation… is expected to drag the local bourse.\u201d<\/p>\n The currency, which fell to the $58:$1 level late last month, closed down by half a centavo at P58.24 on Friday.<\/p>\n Global developments could also weigh on sentiment after the United States imposed new tariffs on China, which Tantiangco said \u201care expected to aggravate market pessimism.\u201d<\/p>\n Investors could also take their cues from the release of August overseas Filipino worker (OFW) remittance data on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Online stock brokerage firm 2TradeAsia.com, meanwhile, said global and domestic uncertainties were keeping investors on the sidelines even as selective opportunities arise.<\/p>\n \u201cGlobal markets navigated heightened uncertainty… with gold surging past $4,000 per ounce for the first time as investors piled into safe havens amid persistent global inflation pressures and policy divergences,\u201d it said of last week.<\/p>\n Minutes from the latest US Federal Reserve meeting showed a divided central bank, with a slim majority signaling two more rate cuts this year to support a softening labor market. However, 2TradeAsia said tariff-induced inflation could limit further easing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe October 28\u201329 Fed meeting will be key, where a 25-basis-point trim to 3.75 to 4 percent appears extremely likely,\u201d it said. The brokerage also warned that continued fallout from the US government shutdown could inject additional volatility into markets.<\/p>\n Locally, 2TradeAsia said the planned P45-billion initial public offering (IPO) of Maynilad Water Services, Inc., the largest since 2021, could inject liquidity and highlight the resilience of the utility sector.<\/p>\n \u201cBrace for some headline volatility come pricing (Oct. 20) as the mere size of the issue is material to market volume,\u201d the brokerage said.<\/p>\n It added that Vietnam\u2019s possible upgrade to secondary emerging market status by FTSE Russell in September 2026 could divert as much as $6 billion in foreign inflows away from the Philippines.<\/p>\n \u201cThe shift in regional risk premium is something that we have flagged in our past reports, and while the domestic story should still hold overall, near-term alpha at home might remain limited,\u201d 2TradeAsia said.<\/p>\n The brokerage advised investors to focus on defensive and high-conviction plays such as gold mining, real estate investment trusts and income-generating stocks, saying that \u201cstaying power above 6K (the 6,000 level) might rouse dormant contrarian spirits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE stock market could head lower this week given lingering corruption issues, a weak peso and renewed global…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[79,28611,18,19,17,72173,188,53313,72172,65486,1255],"class_list":{"0":"post-117912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-corruption","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-lowering","14":"tag-markets","15":"tag-peso","16":"tag-seen","17":"tag-sentiment","18":"tag-tariffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}