{"id":171930,"date":"2018-07-18T22:32:35","date_gmt":"2018-07-19T02:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=171930"},"modified":"2018-07-18T22:32:35","modified_gmt":"2018-07-19T02:32:35","slug":"local-stocks-rise-peso-weakens-as-usd-surges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/07\/18\/local-stocks-rise-peso-weakens-as-usd-surges\/","title":{"rendered":"Local stocks rise, Peso weakens as USD surges"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The main equities index ticked-up by 0.94 percent, or 69.69 points, to 7,451.37 points. (Shutterstock photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) rose for a second day in a row Wednesday but the peso fell after the US dollar powered forward. This, following Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell\u2019s testimony before the US Senate Tuesday night (Manila time) painting a rosy picture of the US economy.<\/p>\n

The main equities index ticked-up by 0.94 percent, or 69.69 points, to 7,451.37 points.<\/p>\n

All the other counters followed with the broader All Shares up by 0.61 percent, or 27.13 points, to 4,492.51 points.<\/p>\n

Property and Holding firms both rose by more one percent at 1.36 percent and 1.07 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n

Mining and Oil followed with 0.85 percent as well as Financials, 0.65 percent, Services, 0.52 percent, and Industrial, 0.33 percent.<\/p>\n

Volume for the day reached 1.24 billion shares amounting to Php 4.25 billion.<\/p>\n

Gainers led losers at 108 to 76 while 52 shares were unchanged.<\/p>\n

In an interview the Philippine News Agency, Astro Del Castillo, President and Managing Director of finance and investment company First Grade Finance, Inc., said investors took their cue from Dow Jones, which got a boost from Powell\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n

Powell said monetary officials continue to see sustained growth of the US economy. He also allayed risks from the Trump administration\u2019s trade policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cPowell\u2019s remarks provided a positive trend and local investors took their cue from it,\u201d Del Castillo said. He added that\u00a0bargain hunting also provided additional boost to local equities, thus, the positive finish for all the indices.<\/p>\n

Affirmation by Fitch Rating of the Philippines\u2019 \u201cBBB\u201d rating, a level above the minimum investment grade, with Stable outlook, is also a “plus” for the PSEi.<\/p>\n

Del Castillo expects the main index to trade sideways between the 7,400-7,500 level until Friday. \u201cIt is healthy for the index not to rise too fast and too soon,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the local currency shed Php0.10 after it ended the middle of the week at 53.49 from 53.39 Tuesday.<\/p>\n

A trader said the peso\u2019s weakness was expected following the greenback\u2019s appreciation after Powell\u2019s testimony.<\/p>\n

The peso opened the day at 53.44, sideways from the previous day\u2019s 53.50.<\/p>\n

It traded between 53.52 and 53.42, bringing the day\u2019s average to 53.46.<\/p>\n

Volume for the day amounted to USD423.55 million, down from day-ago\u2019s USD504.59 million.<\/p>\n

The currency pair is seen to trade between 53.40 and 53.60 Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) rose for a second day in a row Wednesday but the peso fell …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":60246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,43],"tags":[53635,12556],"class_list":["post-171930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-stock-markets","tag-jerome-powell","tag-philippine-stock-exchange-index","mauthors-joann-villanueva","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}