Stocks lost ground on Friday despite improvement in mining shares and holding firms sub-indices.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index declined 17.45 points to 7,235.21. Volume reached 5.75 billion shares valued at P7.24 billion from the previous day’s 5.76 billion shares worth P6.69 billion

Foreign selling reached P4.36 billion while foreign buying amounted to P.420 billion.

Meanwhile, Cemex Holdings Philippines, Inc. obtained a senior unsecured peso term loan facility of $280 million with BDO.

The peso weakened slightly to P49.86 against the US dollar from Thursday’s P49.87. Volume at the Philippine Dealing System climbed to$422.10 million from $353 million. DMS