MANILA – A wait-and-see stance ahead of the release of Philippines’ June 2019 inflation report resulted in the sideways midweek close of the Philippine peso while global growth concerns weighed down the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) Wednesday.
The peso closed the day at 51.16 from the previous day’s 51.11, which a trader attributed to investors’ decision to stay at the sidelines pending the release of the inflation report on Friday.
Inflation posted an uptick to 3.2 percent last May from April’s three percent but monetary officials believe that this is "one-off" and they remain optimistic that full-year average will be within the government’s two to four percent target.
For the day, the local currency opened at 51.2, little changed from the 51.17 Tuesday.
It traded between 51.25 and 51.12, resulting to an average of 51.188.
Volume reached USD924.2 million, lower than the previous day’s USD931.4 million.
The currency pair is seen to trade between 51.20 and 51.30 on Thursday.
On the other hand, the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) ended on the red with a slip of 0.01 percent, or 0.92 points, to 8,092.68 points.
All Shares declined by 0.04 percent, or 2.08 points, to 4,939.63 points.
Most of the sectors also finished with losses, led by the Mining and Oil, which fell 1.61 percent.
It was followed by the Services, 0.93 percent; Financials, 0.39 percent; and Holding Firms, 0.04 percent.
On the other hand, Industrial rose 0.67 percent and Property, 0.22 percent.
Volume reached 1.3 billion shares amounting to PHP7.6 billion.
Decliners surpassed advancers at 98 to 90 while 63 shares were unchanged. (PNA)
