Share prices ended flat yesterday in a thin "holiday" trading as investors throughout the region celebrated the Lunar new year.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index was down 5.64 points to 3,224, a 0.17 percent decline on the back of traders' late profit taking.

Trading turnover reached only P1.23 billion, not even half of this year's average daily turnover.

Gainers edged losers 53 to 41 with 58 stocks unchanged.

Ron Rodrigo, DBP-Daiwa research head, said that the local market is easily affected by the low liquidity since many of the foreign funds are based in Hong Kong.

Jomar Lacson, head of research at brokerage Campos, Lanuza, and Co., noted that 2nd liners like EEI were curiously snapped by traders indicating some company specific leads are being taken by investors to choose what stocks they would play on.

The market's bigger picture however remains captive of overseas leads according to Francis Liboro, PCCI Securities, Inc. president who said that a clear economic decoupling of the Philippine economy is needed in order to encourage the return of confidence in the local market. Liboro said that the recession fear in the US is stoking fear of its spillover effects in other economies where it has big trading relation.

"The key is our Q1 and Q2 GDP if we can show that our GDP is the same. If we can show that we are not affected like other economies, then we can attract foreign funds again," said Liboro.

Most actively traded PNOC-Energy Development Corp. (PNOC-EDC) was down P0.20 to P5.70.

Megaworld Corp. was down P0.05 to P2.65.

Bank of the Philippine Islands, Inc. was steady at P58.

Alliance Global, Inc., was steady at P4.30.

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) was down P10 to P2,940.

Rival Globe Telecom, Inc., (Globe) was down P20 to P1,575.