BY ALBERT CASTRO

SHARE prices plummeted by 4.1 percent yesterday, the second straight loss of such magnitude in as many days, following a drop in Wall Street of over 400 points.

The market lost 10 percent of its value for the whole week, mainly on account of sell-offs by foreigners who were shipping out funds to safer havens.

Foreign funds sold P1.05 billion worth of stocks during the week.

On Friday, the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) closed the week at 1,765.90, a 76.43 points drop from Thursday’s closing.

Losers edged gainers 79 to 11. Turnover reached 820.15 million shares worth P1.17 billion.

The market has lost a total of P3.78 trillion worth of value since the start of the year because of continued selling.

"Risk aversions continue to hit the market. The past two days saw the US market declining by nearly 900 points, which led foreign funds to liquidate," said Emmanuel Soller, Equitiworld Securities trader.

"Foreign selling continues to pull local stocks. The selling outweighs the relatively good performance of local companies as reported in their latest filings," he added.

Soller said investors were continuing to look for indication that the US crisis would soon be solved and were awaiting the assumption into office by US president-elect Barrack Obama and his plans to address the crisis.

Most actively traded Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. was down P120 to P2,060. Ayala Corp. was down P7 to P174. Energy Development Corp. was down P0.16 to P2.30. Ayala Land was down P0.30 to P5.50. SM Prime Holdings was down P0.50 to P5.80.