MANILA -- The Philippine peso ended Monday weaker against the greenback and the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) finished on the red, which traders attributed these to wait-and-see stance ahead of the policy meetings of Philippine and US monetary officials later this week.
The local currency finished the week’s first trading day at 52.10 from 51.93 at the end of last week.
A trader pointed this to mixed anticipation for the respective decisions of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) Monetary Board (MB), which will have its second policy meeting for the year on March 22 and the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the Federal Reserve from March 20-21.
For the day, the local unit opened at 51.92, better than its 52.10 start Friday last week.
It traded between its opening and closing levels, resulting in an average of 52.04.
Volume for the day reached USD480.3 million, nearly half of the USD835.6 million at the end of last week.
PSEi ended the week with a loss after recovering Friday last week. It gave up 0.03 percent, or 2.61 points, to 8,235.54 points, which a trader said was due to interest rate hike expectations, particularly from the Fed.
A trader said recent economic data releases from the US boost hopes for an interest rate hike as early as this month, given also the rhetoric from Fed officials.
On the other hand, BSP officials have been dousing hopes for any rate hike even as inflation continues to remain high, with the February 2018 figure at 3.9 percent or near the upper end of the government’s 2 to 4 percent 2017-19 target range.
The trader said the BSP has proven its ability to keep rates steady amid high expectations for any hike, thus, any rate adjustment for its key rates is hard to read to date.
With investors staying at the sidelines, the broader All shares tracked the main index and lost 0.68 percent, or 33.70 points, to 4,948.80 points.
Most of the sectors also ended on the red led by Mining and Oil with 4.63 percent decline followed by the Industrial, 1.02 percent; Services, 0.54 percent; and Property, 0.12 percent.
On the other hand, Financials rose by 0.50 percent and Holding Firms by 0.06 percent.
Volume for the day reached a little over five billion shares amounting to PHP8.5 billion.
Losers led gainers at 168 to 62 while 37 stocks were unchanged. (PNA)
