Highlights
- Higher oil prices, reopening of economy pushing peso down.
- New law liberalising foreign ownership of local retail industry kicks in.
- Most analysts expect the Philippine currency to weaken further to 52 to $1 in 2022 amid the growing demand for greenback.
Manila: The Philippine peso dropped further against the US dollar on Monday (February 7, 2022) amid the rise in oil prices and a drop in the stock market index.
The peso has lost 7.17% of its value from from Php47.96: US$1 on February 15, 2021 to $51.40 on Monday (February 7, 2022). As of 4.34pm local time (8.34am UTC) on Monday (February 7, 2022), the peso stood at 51.40 against the greenback, according to Trading Economics data.
Meanwhile, the peso stood at 13.85 against the UAE dirham, or Dh72.20 per Php1,000. For more on gold and foreign exchange rates, click here.
Most analysts expect the Philippine currency to weaken further to 52 to $1 in 2022 amid the growing demand for the dollar.
Stocks slide
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) slid 1.02%, or 76.05 points, to 7,380.30 points on Monday. All Shares followed with a 0.87% slid, or 34.33 points, to 3,899 points. Most of the sectoral indices also lost ground during the day — Holding Firms, 1.87%; Property, 1.77%; Industrial 1.21% and Services, 0.20%.
Two sectors were up: Mining and Oil stocks gained 1.99%, while finance shares rose 0.90%. Decliners led advancers at 105 to 84 while 51 shares were unchanged. Volume reached 1.13 billion shares valued at Php9.2 billion ($179 million).
Reopening economy
Meanwhile, the country’s economy is gradually reopening with more vaccinated foreigners being allowed to fly into the country and a new law liberalising foreign ownership of local retail industry kicked in recently.
On Friday, the Phisix closed near its pre-pandemic high after the latest easing in the inflation data to new one-year lows and amid continued positive market reaction to Congress' approval on amendments to the Public Services Act (PSA) before the election break. The break kicks off this week.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported a deceleration of domestic inflation rate to 3% in January 2022 from 3.2% in December 2021.
It has rebased the consumer price index (CPI) basket based on 2018 prices from 2012 prices, a practice done every six years to ensure that inflation figures are based on latest price developments.
