THE sentiment of foreign short-term investors to the Philippines turned positive in mid-November this year, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.
Foreign portfolio invesments (FPI) from the start of 2018 up until the first two weeks of November showed a marked improvement to hit a net inflow of $266.63 million, contrasting with the $770.25-million net outlfow in the same period last year.
FPI are known as “hot” or
“speculative” money because they are easily pulled in and out of the local platforms in the slight change of global and local sentiment.
The recovery was made after the Philippines got its biggest weekly net inflow in the week ending November 16, at $251.79 million. This is the country’s biggest weekly net inflow since March this year.
It was during that week when the BSP pulled its trigger anew to hike its main policy rates by 25 basis points, despite the slower-than-expected growth rate of the country in the third quarter, as announced by the economic managers earlier that month at 6.1 percent.
Latest statements from the
Central Bank show that the United States continued to be the main destination of outflows, receiving 77.7 percent of total hot money remittances in October.
The top 5 investor countries, meanwhile, were the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, Norway and Luxembourg—with a combined share to total of 82.4 percent during the month.
About 68.8 percent of investments registered in the previous month were in PSE-listed securities, pertaining mainly to holding firms, food, beverage and tobacco firms, banks, property companies and telecommunication companies.
The balance went mostly to peso government securities at 31.2 percent and peso time deposits.