ECONOMIC DATA PREVIEW
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
- Previous week: The local currency started last week posting gains from the previous week’s slide to appreciate to 44.82 against the US dollar compared to the previous week’s end-week trade at 44.91 against the dollar. The peso further appreciated on Tuesday to hit 44.747 to a dollar, the strongest that the peso has been in over a week. However, the local currency started to slide to 44.8 to a dollar on Wednesday and 44.805 versus the greenback on Thursday in anticipation of the central bank’s monetary-policy decision. The peso ended the week at 44.81 to a dollar.
- Week ahead: Investors in the foreign-exchange trading will likely follow leads from the upcoming Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday—where the US’s central monetary authority will decide on its own policy meeting and will likely hint on the direction of the normalization of interest rates in their economy, which will likely affect that of emerging markets’, including the Philippines’.
Money-supply growth (M3) September 2014
Friday, October 31
- August’s M3: Money-supply growth in the country—as broadly measured by M3—increased anew in August, averaging 18.5 percent from 17.9 percent just a month earlier despite the measures put in place by the central bank to siphon liquidity. The central bank attributed the rise in M3 to strong bank lending during the period. In absolute terms, the M3 aggregated to P7.14 trillion.
- September’s M3: Central bank officials have earlier reiterated that they expect the M3 levels of the country to still go down further toward the end of the year. In an interview this month, BSP Deputy Governor for the Monetary Stability Sector Diwa C. Guinigundo said cash supply in September showed signs of “easing.” He also said that this is expected to continue to ease given the monetary measures that the central bank have implemented in the past.