MANILA — Both the Philippine peso and the main stocks gauge finished the week with gains due to seasonal inflows of remittances for the Christmas holidays and positive expectations on the impact of the tax reform program.
The peso ended Friday at 50.14 from Thursday’s 50.24, which a trader said was expected as more overseas Filipinos send funds for their families for the holidays.
Corporates’ off-loading for their US dollar holdings also helped lift the peso, the trader said.
For the day, the local currency opened at 50.18, slightly weaker than the previous day’s 50.10, and traded between 50.13 and 50.35, resulting in an average of 50.24.
The trader said the greenback was hit a bit by the report on the final third-quarter 2017 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the US economy at 3.2 percent, lower than the expectations of 3.3 percent, which was also the figure for the quarter’s second reading.
Volume for the day reached USD740.8 million, higher than the USD630.2 million a day ago.
The currency pair is seen to trade between 50.10 and 50.40 next week.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) ended the week with an improvement of 0.65 percent, or 54.03 points, to 8,432.31 points.
The broader All Shares tracked the main index after it went up 0.59 percent, or 28.61 points, to 4,921.41 points.
Five of the six sectoral indices followed, led by Mining and Oil with a 1.65 percent increase.
Holding Firms rose by 0.93 percent; Financials, 0.85 percent; and Services and Property, both at 0.38 percent.
Industrials, however, dropped by 22 percent.
Volume for the day reached 839.41 million shares amounting to PHP10.15 billion.
Gainers led losers at 108 to 96 while 40 shares were unchanged.