By Joann Villanueva/Philippine News Agency
MANILA — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s hint that the Fed’s key rates may be due for a cut, possibly this month, boosted the Philippine peso and the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) Thursday.
The local currency ended the day at 51.19 from 51.46 a day ago, which BPI Research pointed to Powell’s dovish statement during a Congressional testimony Wednesday.
The Fed chief said they will “act as appropriate” to address the impact of the uncertainties in the global economy because of the trade tensions.
With investors’ sentiment up, the local currency opened the day at better level of 51.3 from 51.405 in the previous session.
It traded between 51.19 and 51.34 resulting to an average of 51.259.
Volume reached USD883.31 million, higher than day-ago’s USD729.69 million.
The currency pair is seen to trade between 51.00 and 51.40 on Friday.
Relatively, the main equities index rose 0.94 percent, or 76.28 points, to 8,154.49 points.
All Shares increased by 0.73 percent, or 35.80 points, to 4,957.97 points.
Property led the sectoral indices after it went up by 2.20 percent and was followed by the Financials, 1.76 percent; Services, 0.83 percent; and Holding Firms, 0.22 percent.
On the other hand, Industrial declined by 0.34 percent and Mining and Oil, 0.26 percent.
Volume reached 1.27 billion shares amounting to PHP6 billion.
Advancers led decliners at 124 to 74 while 49 shares were unchanged.
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