Stocks closed marginally lower on Thursday despite a decline in the mining and oil sector caused by the release of many mining firms which were ordered closed or suspended for three to six months by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index declined 1.54 points to 7,225.91 points as colume picked up from Wednesday.

Turnover amounted to 2.13 billion shares valued at P5.94 billion. Foreign selling amounted to P3.41 billion while foreign buying was at P3.17 billion.

The mining and oil index lost 1.65 percent. Benguet Corp, one of the 23 companies ordered closed, lost 10.38 percent to P1.90. Lepanto Consolidated declined by 9.31 percent to P1.96. Marcventures declined 11.1 percent to P1.84.

The peso strengthened to P49.755 from P49.82 as volume fetched $667.40 million at the Philippine Dealing System. DMS