By Joann Santiago
MANILA, Jan 28 (PNA) — Foreign capital continues to flock to the Philippines to fuel the local currency and the local bourse.
This resulted to the peso ending Wednesday at 44.08, little changed from the 44.06 a day ago.
A trader said investors took positions in the local government securities (GS) market and their dollar holdings ahead of the end of the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) two-day meeting later in the day.
The FOMC is widely expected to keep the Federal Reserve’s key rate to its current level of zero to 0.25 percent but the trader said another factor they are eyeing is whether the Committee will touch the issue on the European Central Bank’s (ECB) fresh stimulus program.
The ECB is scheduled to implement a 60-billion euro monthly bond purchases from March 2015 to September 2016 to help the ailing economy of the Euro zone.
With these factors in play, the local unit opened the day’s trading at 44.08, almost unchanged from the 44.10 Tuesday.
It traded between 44.19 and 44.06 resulting to an average of 44.14.
Volume of trade reached USD 771.8 million, a bit higher than the USD 703.4 million in the previous trading.
”Appreciation (of the peso) was on the back of sustained interest in the local equity market,” the trader said.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) further grew by 0.40 points to 7,661.18 points Wednesday as most of the counters posted increases lead by the holding firms and industrial indices. (PNA)