Rich pickings to be had at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) in November helped boost short-term foreign-currency investments, also known as portfolio or “hot” money, to pour inward on net basis during the month, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Thursday.
According to the BSP, portfolio inflows for the period totaled $369.92 million, a development that also helped snap net outflows reported the previous September and again in October.
The November net inflow, however, proved lower than $980.94 million net inflows seen in the same month last year.
The rise in opportunistic and short- term foreign investments was attributed to purchases of listed shares at the PSE, particularly the initial public offer by a retail company, the additional listing of shares of a gaming corporation and the top-up offering of a holding corporation’s shares during the month.
According to the BSP, foreign sentiment proved more buoyant in the first week of December when net inflows totaling $385.21 million resulted from gross inflows totaling $729.19 million against gross outflows of just $343.98 million.
As a result, the outmigration of foreign funds from year to date moderated sharply to net outflows totaling only $322.02 million versus year ago outflows reaching $4.599 billion.
The BSP reported a large net migration of foreign funds in the early months of the year as markets reacted to adjustments adopted by the US Fed and the decision to cast aside its loose monetary policy stance on indications of a stronger, more vibrant economy.
The central bank said 78.7 percent of the investments during the month were on PSE-listed securities—mainly in holding firms, banks, property companies, telecommunication firms, and casinos and gaming companies.
The rest of the investments were in peso-denominated government securities and in other peso-debt instruments.
The top investor countries during the month were the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, Luxembourg and Malaysia. These five countries have a combined share of 76 percent of the total investments during the period.