PSEi, peso end Tuesday with gains

MANILA - - Both the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) and the peso ended Tuesday on a positive note following days of muted performance.

PSEi rose by 0.75 percent, 60.55 points, to 8,145.00 points, recovering from a six-day slide.

A trader traced it partly to deceleration of domestic inflation last November to 3.3 percent from month-ago’s 3.5 percent due to slower rise in the food and non-alcoholic beverages index.

This positive close was noted across all indices, with the All Shares up by 0.58 percent, or 27.41 points, to 4,786.06 points.

Property led the sectors after rising by 1.62 percent followed by Financials, 0.69 percent; Holding Firms, 0.63 percent; Mining and Oil, 0.46 percent; Services, 0.29 percent; and Industrial, 0.07 percent.

Volume for the day was thin at 672.03 million shares amounting to HP7.81 billion.

Gainers surpassed losers at 102 to 97 while 49 shares were unchanged.

The local currency ended the day at 50.63, little changed from the 50.66 Monday.

It opened the day weak at 50.61 from 50.40 in the previous session.

It improved to 50.52 mid-trade but was also pulled to 50.68 resulting an average of 50.59.

Volume for the day reached USD668.1 million, lower than the USD723.4 million a day ago.

The currency pair is seen to trade between 50.50 and 50.70 Wednesday.

ING Bank Manila senior economist Joey Cuyegkeng, in a research note, forecasts the peso to end 2017 at 51-level to a greenback but weaken to 52.85 by end-2018.

He said the local currency “may be adversely affected with the faster than expected pace of US Fed tightening in 2018 and a shift of monetary bias from accommodation of neutral for some developed market center banks.”

The government’s peso-dollar assumption this year ranges between 48-50. (PNA)