By Joann Villanueva/Philippine News Agency
MANILA — The Federal Reserve’s decision to keep key policy rates steady benefited the Philippine peso Thursday and the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) ended on a positive note tracking its counterparts in the region.
The local currency ended the day’s trade at 51.645 against the greenback from 51.89 Wednesday.
BPI Research attributed this to the weakness of the US dollar after the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) kept the Fed’s key rates steady at between 2.25-2.50 percent.
Fed officials also indicated possible cuts in the coming months due to uncertainties in the economy and the low inflation rate.
The Fed now projects US inflation rate to grow at a slower rate of 1.5 percent against the 1.8 percent projection last March.
With these developments, the peso opened the day better at 51.75 from 51.85 a day ago.
It traded between 51.78 and 51.645, resulting to an average of 51.717.
Volume reached USD829.16 million, lower than the USD902.45 a day ago.
BPI Research expects the currency pair to trade between 51.50 and 51.70 Friday.
On the other hand, PSEi was able to post gains despite a challenging morning session. It rose to 8,022.42 points, up 0.07 percent or 5.41 points.
All Shares increased by 0.18 percent, or 8.81 points, to 4,891.38 points.
Most of the sectors tracked the main gauge, led by the Mining and Oil with 1.87 percent. It was followed by the Industrial, 0.75 percent; Financials, 0.64 percent; and Holding Firms, 0.16 percent.
On the other hand, Property and Services declined by 0.39 percent and 0.38 percent, respectively.
Volume reached 1.88 billion shares amounting to PHP6.74 billion.
Advancers led decliners at 121 to 71 while 49 shares were unchanged.
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