Stocks slump on reports Mitsubishi selling up to 6.2m shares in Ayala Corp.

March 20, 2018

Stocks fell on Tuesday, dragged lower by Ayala Corp. and Ayala Land Inc after two brokerages reported that Mitsubishi Corp. was selling up to 6.2 million shares in Ayala Corp. The Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 175.94 points to 8,059.60. Ayala Corp. lost 7.23 percent to end at P937 and Ayala Land went down by 1.12 percent to P41. Col Financial research head April Lee Tan in her Twitter post said :"Reason for AC ( Ayala Corp's) weak performance today. Mitsubishi Corp. to sell up to 6.2 million shares of AC. " D.A. Securities, in a Twitter post said: "Ayala Corp. (down as much as 7.3%) is the biggest drag on the index today followed by Ayala Land." Around 1 pm, D.A. Securities tweeted: "Ayala Corp falls at its lowest in 6 m (onths) after Mitsubishi Corp sells $152m shares of AC at a discount." But in the block sale report in today's PSE quotes, it showed two block sales of  Ayala Corp, one at 6.26 billion valued at P5.851 billion and 2.23 billion valued at P2.087 billion. The price in the two block sales was at P934. No reason was given why the Japanese firm was selling its shares in Ayala Corp. Volume reached 5 billion shares worth P18.5 billion from Monday's 5 billion shares valued at P8.48 billion. Foreigners were net sellers, unloading P13.44 billion while buying P9.6 billion, The peso closed at P52.08 against the US dollar from P52.10. Volume at the Philippine Dealing System reached $456.20 million from $480.30 million. DMS