MANILA: The Philippine peso improved against the US dollar Tuesday, ending stronger at the 51-level, but the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) closed in the red territory.
The local currency finished the trade at 51.85 from 52.1 close a day ago, which BPI Research attributed to the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) trade report for April 2019, which saw a 0.4 percent year-on-year rise in exports and a -1.9 percent drop in imports.
PSA said the rise in exports in the fourth month this year is a turn-around from the -1.9 percent result in the same period last year.
The outturn of imports is also a turn-around compared to the 28.6 percent rise in April 2018.
The peso opened the day flat at 52.05, and trade between 52.05 and 51.84. This resulted to an average of 51.969.
Volume reached USD867.45 million, down from the USD1.1 billion a day ago.
The currency pair is seen to trade between 51.70 and 52.10 on Thursday. There will be no trade on Wednesday due to the Independence Day holiday.
On the other hand, the main equities gauge declined by 0.18 percent, or 14.41 points, to 8,030.98 points.
All Shares followed after it fell 0.09 percent, or 4.63 points, to 4,907.68 points.
Most of the sectors also registered declines, led by Mining and Oil with 0.83 percent. It was followed by Holding Firms, 0.72 percent; Property, 0.27 percent; and Financials, 0.26 percent.
On the other hand, Industrial rose by 0.94 percent and Services by 0.72 percent.
Volume totaled to 650.77 million shares amounting to PHP7.8 billion.
