Foreign portfolio investments yield net inflows in June
Registered foreign portfolio investments in June reached $2 billion, higher by 35.8 percent and 11.4 percent than the US$1.5 billion figure in May and the $1.8 billion a year ago.
This may be attributed to positive investor sentiment relative to the anticipated resolution of the conflict in Marawi City, accelerated net foreign buying, and approval by Congress of the first tax reform package, the central bank said in a statement on Thursday.
Outflows for the month of $1.9 billion, were up by 28.3 percent from the $1.5 billion figure in May due to profit taking and investor reaction to the United States Federal Reserve’s decision to increase interest rates.
The same trend was noted on a year-on-year basis, with outflows rising by 42.5 percent from $1.4 billion a year ago.
On the overall, transactions for June yielded net inflows of $80 million, a reversal from the net outflows of $24 million recorded in May 2017. However, the figure is lower compared to $451 million in June last year.
On a year-to-date basis, transactions resulted in net outflows of $461 million, in contrast to the net inflows of $594 million for the same period last year due to certain domestic and international developments, such as the US air strike against Syria, global terrorist attacks, interest rate increases by the US Federal Reserve, political turmoil in the US, and the closure order for several mining companies in the country.
About 82 percent of investments registered in June were in PSE-listed securities (pertaining to mainly holding firms, property companies, telecommunications firms, banks, and utilities companies).
About 17.2 percent went to Peso government securities ; and the 0.8 percent balance to other peso debt instruments . Transactions in PSE-listed securities and other peso debt instruments yielded net inflows of $311 million and $16 million, respectively while investments in peso government security resulted in net outflows of $247 million.
The United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, and Luxembourg were the top five investor countries for the month, with combined share to total of 80.1 percent.
The US continued to be the main destination of outflows, receiving 64.7 percent of total remittances. DMS
