Peso, local stocks rise on US-Mexico trade deal

The local unit ended Tuesday’s trading at 53.325 from 53.465 Friday last week on lesser concerns on US’ trade-related issues. (Shutterstock photo)

MANILA — The Philippine peso and the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) ended the shortened week’s first trading day on positive territory partly on news about the US-Mexico trade deal.

The local unit ended Tuesday’s trading at 53.325 from 53.465 Friday last week on lesser concerns on US’ trade-related issues.

Guian Angelo S. Dumalagan, Landbank market economist, pointed the peso’s strengthening to “trade agreement between US and Mexico.”

“It somehow decreased safe haven buying, despite lingering concerns over the trade conflict between the US and China,” he told PNA in a reply to queries sent through e-mail.

News reports said US and Mexico have reached a deal to revise some parts of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) such as updating provisions on digital economy, automobiles, agriculture and labor unions. Reports said the deal is set to be finalized in the coming days.

With this news, the peso opened the day at 53.36, better than the 53.51 in the previous session.

It improved to 53.32 but was pulled to 53.42 resulting to an average of 53.362.

Volume for the day reached USD640.85 million, higher than the USD421.05 million at the end of last week.

Dumalagan forecasts the currency pair to trade between 53.15 and 53.50 Wednesday.

PSEi further rose after it ended the day at 7,844.

61 points, up by 1.006 percent or 78.14 points.

A trader said the main gauge mirrored its peers in the region, which got a boost from the US-Mexico deal.

Most of the other counters also increased, with the broader All Shares up by 0.

64 percent or 30.31 points.

Mining and Oil posted the highest uptick at 1.85 percent and was followed by the Financials, 1.68 percent, Holding Firms, 0.90 percent; Property, 0.77 percent; Industrial, 0.60 percent.

Only the Services index ended on the red with a 0.01 percent drop.

Volume reached 1.55 billion shares amounting to PHP7.65 billion.

Gainers led losers at 112 to 94 while 38 shares were unchanged.