by: Jennifer Austria 
Bloomberg
Photo courtesy of PhilStar
The stock market index dropped below the 6,000-point level Monday, nearly erasing all gains posted this year, after China signaled it will maintain efforts to curb credit growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
The Philippine Stock Exchange Index sank 211.12 points, or 3.4 percent, to 5,971.05, the fourth consecutive session it dropped. Losers routed gainers, 165 to 17, with 34 issues unchanged. The PSEi now is just 1.9 percent up in 2013 from 5,860.99 on Jan. 2. The index had risen 26 percent to a year-high of 7,392.20 on May 15.

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The rest of the global stock markets reeled, with Shanghai’s index enduring its biggest loss in four years, after China allowed commercial lending rates to soar in a move analysts said was aimed at curbing a booming underground lending industry.
Analysts say the spike late Thursday in the country’s interbank lending rate to over 13 percent was part of an effort to trim off-balance-sheet lending that could threaten the financial stability of the world’s second-largest economy.

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Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite Index plummeted 5 percent to 1,968.51 while the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index plunged 6.1 percent to 881.87.
Britain’s FTSE 100 dropped 1.5 percent to 6,067.35 in early trading. Germany’s DAX fell 1.1 percent to 7,704.88. France’s CAC-40 fell 1.5 percent to 3,601.88.
China Minsheng Banking Corp. dropped the most since 2011 in Hong Kong and the CSI 300 Index, representing the 300 biggest companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchange, entered a bear market.
“The situation in China is adding to the concerns of the Federal Reserve’s plan to scale back stimulus,” Akbar Syarief, a fund manager overseeing about 3.3 trillion rupiah ($332 million) at PT MNC Asset Management, said in Jakarta. “Investors are pulling out of regional markets and moving to safe haven assets like the dollar.”
PSE president and chief executive Hans Sicat, meanwhile, remain positive about the overall domestic macroeconomic environment.
“The market may have lost ground in the past weeks, but we believe this is a result of an overreaction to global developments. There is a disconnect between good local economic fundamentals and the short-term market psychology,” Sicat said.

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Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima downplayed the market fall. “Philippine fundamentals are good and the best thing we can do is to continue up the path of better economic fundamentals. This is the best way to attract investments,” the finance chief said.
Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., the second-biggest lender, plummeted 6.9 percent to P105, while BDO Unibank Inc., the largest bank, tumbled 3.7 percent to P79.95. With Bloomberg, AP and Jennifer Ambanta

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