Peso up on lower US treasury yields as PSEi falls on profit-taking

A lower yields in US treasury boosted the Philippine peso Monday while the local equities market fell due to profit-taking. (Photo: Cheng Ilagan/Philippine Canadian Inquirer)

MANILA—A lower yields in US treasury boosted the Philippine peso Monday while the local equities market fell due to profit-taking.

The local currency finished Monday at 50.09 from 50.18 Friday last week, which a trader pointed to the pressure provided by declining US treasury yields as investor reassess the dovish comments of Federal Reserve officials following last week’s rate hike.

Traders said that although one of the concerns on the Fed rates had been addressed, more volatilities were still expected on questions regarding when and how much the next Fed rate hike would be.

With this, the local unit opened the day almost flat at 50.15 from last Friday’s 50.14.

It traded between 50.09 and 50.19, bringing the day’s average to 50.12.

Volume of trade declined to USD199.3 million from the previous session’s USD444.2 million.

TRaders expect the currency pair to trade between 50.00 and 50.20 Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) finished the day with a loss of 0.39 percent, or 28.45 points, to 7,316.57 points.

A trader said profit taking was up following the index’ two-day rally at the latter part of last week.

All Shares also finished on the red and ended at 4,404.34 points, down 12.86 points or 0.29 percent.

Only the Holding Firms ended the day with gains among other indices.

Property led the decliners after dropping 1.03 percent followed by Financials, 0.84 percent; Mining and Oil, 0.49 percent; Industrial, 0.40 percent; and Services, 0.04 percent.

Volume of trade reached 1.27 billion shares amounting to Php 7 billion.

Decliners involved 111 shares, higher than the 65 stocks that gained while 50 shares were unchanged.