MANILA – The Philippine peso slipped even lower, breaching the 53-to-the-greenback psychological barrier, while local stocks tumbled to the 7,600-mark on Wednesday.
The local currency closed the day at 53.23 from the previous session’s finish of 52.95, thus weakening to an almost 12-year low since 2006.
It opened the day at 53 and its intra-day low reached 53.26.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) fell 2.17 percent, or 168.32 points, to close at 7,602.98 points on Wednesday. It reached as low as 7,552.02 at 2 p.m. on Thursday.
All the other indices tracked the main gauge, with the broader All Shares down by 1.60 percent, or 75.19 points, to 4,629.35 points.
The losing sectors were led by Holding Firms, which dropped by 3.27 percent; followed by Mining and Oil, 1.66 percent; Property, 1.53 percent; Industrial, 1.41 percent; Financials, 1.04 percent; and Services, 0.78 percent.
Volume reached 814.89 million shares amounting to Php7.165 billion.
Losers led gainers at 127 to 66 while 47 shares were unchanged.
The Philippine peso has depreciated further to its weakest in almost 12 years, driven by foreign selling in the stock market.
“We continue to see some foreign outflows in the equity market that’s why we saw the peso-dollar grind higher to new highs for the year,” Benedict Chan, treasurer and head of the Treasury Group at China Bank Corp., said.
Foreign funds bought P3.364 billion worth of shares on the Philippine Stock Exchange and sold P4.879 billion for a net selling position of P1.514 billion.
“After net foreign selling on the PSE, market players converted positions to the dollar,” a foreign exchange trader from a local bank said.
As of press time, Chan said market players are monitoring the results of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting.
University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) School of Economics Dean Cid Terosa has said that the peso depreciation may benefit Philippine exporters, but may spur inflationary pressures and impact on the purchasing power of the public at large. (GMA News)
