PSEi edges up; gaming stocks clobbered

Gaming stocks continued their free fall on Thursday amid heightened regulatory risks, even as the main stock barometer stabilized.

DigiPlus Interactive Corp., the market leader in local online gaming and again the most actively traded stock for the session, lost another 13.89 percent to close at P38.75 per share.

About P2.2 billion worth of DigiPlus shares changed hands as investors priced in the tough restrictions proposed by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian.

Bloomberry, which is just entering the digital gaming space, also fell by 6 percent.

A bill filed by Gatchalian seeks to require stricter know-your-customer rule, regulate advertising, impose a minimum top-up threshold of P10,000 and prevent the likes of GCash and Maya from acting as online payment platforms for online betting.

While it has lost tens of billions of pesos in market capitalization in the last three days alone (it fell by 10 percent on Wednesday, following a nearly 4-percent drop on Tuesday), DigiPlus has maintained a market capitalization of P203 billion as of Thursday.

To date, DigiPlus is valued much higher than some banks, like PNB (P83.7 billion), Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (P62 billion) or Security Bank (P55.7 billion). It is also nearly four times more valuable than Bloomberry (P57 billion), which operates brick-and-mortar casinos.

PSEi firms up

DigiPlus has now far pulled back by 40.66 percent from its 52-week high of P65.30 per share.

Despite online gaming woes, the main-share Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) returned to positive territory. It gained 49.93 points or 0.78 percent to close at 6,468.98.

“Local shares edged higher ahead of the June inflation report due tomorrow, with sentiment lifted by optimism over a new US-Vietnam trade deal,” said Luis Gerardo Limlingan, head of sales at Regina Capital Development.

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But weak US jobs data tempered gains, reinforcing expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut this month, Limlingan said.

Holding firms led the upswing with a 1.26-percent gain, followed by the financial, property and mining/oil firms.

On the other hand, the industrial and services counters ended a tad lower.

Despite the PSEi’s gain, market breadth was negative. There were 126 decliners versus 84 advancers, while 60 stocks were unchanged.