By Joann Villanueva/Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) rose anew ahead of the release of June’s inflation figure while risk aversion due to global growth concerns weighed the peso down.
PSEi improved by 0.62 percent, or 49.89 points, to 8,093.60 points, which BPI Research attributed to anticipations for a better inflation figure for June.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is scheduled to report the June 2019 inflation figure on Friday.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) forecasts this to range between 2.2 to 3 percent.
Monetary officials expect the inflation spike in June 2019 to 3.2 percent to be a freak occurrence since rice prices continue to decline, among other factors.
Last year, upticks in the price of rice, a staple food in Filipino households, caused the sustained rise in inflation, which peaked at 6.7 percent in September and October.
The optimism on the return of the downward path of inflation last June boosted most of the counters, with the All Shares up by 0.53 percent, or 26.06 points, to 4,941.71 points.
Holding Firms posted the highest gain among the sectors after it rose 1.05 percent. It was followed by the Services, 0.87 percent; Industrial, 0.83 percent; Mining and Oil, 0.44 percent; and Financials, 0.41 percent.
Only the Property ended on the red after it slipped 0.07 percent.
Volume totaled to 981.97 million shares amounting to PHP5.93 billion.
Advancers led decliners at 118 to 77 while 51 shares were unchanged.
On the other hand, the local currency weakened to 51.11 after strengthening to 51.05 to a greenback a day ago.
It opened the day at 51.17, a tad better than the 51.23 Monday.
It traded between 51.2 and 51.00, resulting to an average of 51.106.
Volume reached USD931.4 million, higher than the previous session’s USD870.2 million.
BPI Research forecasts the peso to trade between 51 and 51.30 to a US dollar on Wednesday.
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