Upgrade on PH’s credit ratings boosts peso, PSEi

FILE: (ShutterStock photo)

MANILA — Monday’s upgrade by Fitch Ratings on the Philippines’ investment grade to ‘BBB’ from ‘BBB-‘ with Stable outlook lifted both the peso and the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) on Monday.

The local unit finished the day’s trade at 50.36, way better than its 50.50 close Friday last week.

A trader pointed this primarily to the unexpected ratings upgrade on the domestic economy, noting that investors’ will remain optimistic on the domestic economy amidst some political noise.

For the day, the local currency opened at 50.42, stronger than the 50.69 in the previous session.

It traded between 50.45 and 50.30 bringing the average to 50.34.

Some USD509 million changed hands, down from the USD703.1 million at the end of last week.

The trader attributed the lower volume to investors’ wait-and-see stance ahead of the respective meetings of the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ policy-making Monetary Board (MB) on Dec. 12-13 and December 14, respectively.

The currency pair is seen to trade between 50.30 and 50.50 Tuesday.

PSEi rose for the third day in a row after it ended Monday at 8,358.57 points, up by 0.65 percent or 53.87 points.

The broader All Shares followed with a jump of 0.55 percent, or 26.59 points, to 4,885.45 points.

Five of the six sectoral indices finished with gains, led by the Mining and Oil, 1.97 percent. Other gainers are the Financials, 1.59 percent; Holding Firms, 0.88 percent; Property, 0.76 percent; and Industrial, 0.15 percent.

Only the Services finished on the red after it fell 1.37 percent.

Volume for the day reached 923.34 million shares amounting to PHP5.85 billion.

Gainers led losers at 114 to 82 while 42 shares were unchanged.  (PNA)