MANILA, 28 October — Unconfirmed reports of coup attempts against Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo caused the market barometer on the local stock exchange to plummet although week on week the market hardly moved and later in the trading week shrugged off coup rumors.
The composite index edged down 1.66 percent as it shed 16.92 points to 1,002.52 points.
Value turnover descended 10.92 percent to $1.34 billion (25.76 million pesos). Volume turnover rose 8.96 percent to 1.2 billion.
Asiasec Equities analyst Oliver Plana said latest news reports alleging members of the opposition have been scheming to topple the government of President Arroyo were taken with a grain of salt by the market.
"I think by now investors have gotten used to it... it always crops up whenever the president goes out of the country," he said.
Last week, Arroyo traveled to Shanghai to attend the summit meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. The government has denounced the coup rumors as baseless.
United Coconut Planters Bank Trust fund manager Vanessa Lim, however, believed the host of negatives facing the economy would quickly snuff out any sustained gains and the market would soon resume its downside bias.
"If you look at the volume there are barely any participants in the market... it (the main index rise) is just a few stocks rallying from oversold positions... we have to see if this accumulation continues and I doubt it," Lim said.
"It’s just a technical bounce, basically follow-through buying, but the market is still highly cautious," said Allan Araullo, vice president of Regina Capital Development.
Enrique Santa Ana, associate director for sales, said the market seemed to be have held support at the 978 to 980 level.
"As long as there is no major negative news, the market will trade within that range of about 100 points. It’s sort of an equilibrium stage," he said.
Traders said the market was unlikely to sustain its uptrend for more than one or two days next week with the lackluster trading volume accompanying the rebound.