MANILA – Stronger inflows from Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) as of end-August 2018 buoyed the peso Monday but the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) fell on jitters created by US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose additional tariff on Chinese goods.
The local unit ended the day at 54.08, better than its 54.13 close Friday last week.
A trader cited this development partly to anticipations for a positive remittances report during the day.
Late in the afternoon, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported that personal remittances by Filipino workers overseas grew 2.4 percent year-on-year as of end-August this year to USD21.2 billion.
This was traced to the 2.1 percent jump of total transfers from land-based workers with contracts of one year or more and the 3.8 percent growth of those sent by land-based workers with short-term contracts and by sea-based workers.
However, personal remittances declined by 1.4 percent in August alone to USD 2.76 billion.
For the day, the local currency opened at 54.12, little changed from the 54.1 start in the previous session.
It traded between 54.19 and 54.05, resulting to an average of 54.13.
Volume reached USD528.9 million, lower than the USD776.1 million at the end of last week.
The currency pair is seen to trade between 54.00 and 54.20 Tuesday.
On the other hand, PSEi dropped 1.12 percent, or 78.26 points, to 6,926.51 points.
Most of the other counters mirrored the main index, with the broader All Shares down by 0.59 percent, or 25.22 points, to 4,276.58 points.
Five of the six sectoral indices also ended on the red, led by the Industrial, 1.71 percent; and followed by the Services, 1.09 percent; Holding Firms, 0.92 percent; Property, 0.54 percent; and Financials, 0.33 percent.
Only the Mining and Oil finished with gains after it improved by 0.24 percent.
Volume reached 542.16 million stocks amounting to PHP4.4 billion.
Advancers led decliners at 106 to 84 while 41 shares were unchanged. (Joann Villanueva/PNA)
