By Joann Villanueva/PNA
MANILA — The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) rose anew Tuesday but the peso weakened against the US dollar ahead of the November 2018 inflation report’s release.
The main stocks gauge rose 2.27 percent, or 171.02 points, to 7,703.92 points.
A trader said the truce in the US and China trade war which came about after leaders of the two economic giants met, boosted the equities market.
The rise of the main index was trailed by most of the other counters, with the All Shares up by 1.73 percent, or 78.26 points, to 4,602.51 points.
Holding Firms rose by 2.99 percent and was followed by the Financials, 2.20 percent; Services, 1.99 percent; Property, 1.87 percent; and Industrial, 0.44 percent.
Only the Mining and Oil ended the day on the red after it fell 0.26 percent.
Volume reached 1.26 billion shares amounting to PHP11.5 billion.
Advancers led losers at 128 to 54 while 52 shares were unchanged.
On the other hand, the peso ended the day at 52.52 from 52.32 a day ago.
A trader said risk-off sentiment was up a day before the government announces the inflation rate for the 11th month this year.
Inflation is among the main drivers of the peso’s weakness in the past months given the trade war issues overseas as well as the uptick of global oil prices.
However, domestic inflation last October held steady at 6.7 percent relative to the September level, with the deceleration of food inflation coming after supply constraints have been addressed a bit.
Also, prices of oil in the international market have declined to just over USD50 per barrel for crude oil after rising to over USD60 per barrel last October.
With the wait-and-see stance on the inflation report to be released Wednesday, the peso opened the day weaker at 52.515 from 52.35 Monday.
It was able to strengthen to 52.49 but also weakened to 52.6, resulting to an average of 52.542.
Volume rose to USD1.06 billion from USD965 million a day ago.
The currency pair is seen to trade between 52.40 and 52.60 Wednesday.
