{"id":176076,"date":"2018-08-10T04:24:04","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T08:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=176076"},"modified":"2018-08-10T04:24:04","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T08:24:04","slug":"peso-unmoved-local-stocks-downed-lackluster-gdp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/10\/peso-unmoved-local-stocks-downed-lackluster-gdp\/","title":{"rendered":"Peso unmoved, local stocks downed by lackluster GDP"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The peso ended the day at 53.09 from 53.07 a day ago, which a trader said is contrary to the performance of other currencies in the region. (Shutterstock photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— The lower-than-expected growth of the Philippine economy in the second quarter of 2018, which was at a lackluster six percent, resulted in the negative close of the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) but the peso managed to stay firm.<\/p>\n

The peso ended the day at 53.09 from 53.07 a day ago, which a trader said is contrary to the performance of other currencies in the region.<\/p>\n

The trader pointed the risk aversion to the slowdown of growth, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), from April to June this year from quarter-ago\u2019s 6.6 percent but this remains among the strongest in the region.<\/p>\n

Growth in the second quarter this year was driven by the manufacturing, trade and construction.<\/p>\n

The unit opened at 53.055, weaker than the 52.93 a day ago.<\/p>\n

It traded between 53.185 and 53.035, resulting to an average of 53.107.<\/p>\n

Volume reached USD682.1 million, lower than then USD721.15 million Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The currency pair is seen to trade between 53.00 and 53.20 Friday.<\/p>\n

During the day, the central bank\u2019s policy-making Monetary Board (MB) hiked the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas\u2019 (BSP) key rates by 50 basis points, bringing the total rate increase to date to 100 basis points.<\/p>\n

Asked wether the rate hikes to date will help the peso, BSP Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr., in a briefing, said: \u201dWe hope so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, BSP Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said the rate hikes is \u201cnot primarily focused on addressing volatilities in the foreign exchange market.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the main reason for the policy decision is to ensure that inflation will remain within the government\u2019s target range, which in turn, is the mandate of the BSP.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the main stocks gauge fell 0.39 percent, or 30.75 points, to 7,820.71 points, which another trader also pointed to the GDP report.<\/p>\n

However, the broader All Shares rose by 0.15 percent, or 7.21 points, to 4,715.82 points.<\/p>\n

It was also a mix for the sectoral indices, with Industrial and Property rising by 0.31 percent and 0.08 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Holding Firms registered the highest drop at 0.44 percent and was followed by Financials, 0.38 percent; Mining and Oil, 0.37 percent; and Services, 0.13 percent.<\/p>\n

Volume reached 1.13 billion shares amounting to Php6.3 billion.<\/p>\n

Losers led gainers at 121 to 90 while 34 shares were unchanged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— The lower-than-expected growth of the Philippine economy in the second quarter of 2018, which was at a lackluster six …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":45359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","mauthors-joann-villanueva","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176076","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=176076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}