Peso ends flat vs dollar
THE PESO closed flat against the dollar on Monday amid “strong” appetite for the US currency despite trading weaker overnight.
The local unit closed Monday’s session at P52.65 versus the greenback, flat from Friday’s close.
The peso opened the session stronger at P52.63 per dollar, slipping to as low as P52.72 intraday. Meanwhile, its best showing for the day stood at P52.62 against the greenback.
Trading volume thinned to $846.4 million from the $976.4 million that switched hands the previous session.
A foreign exchange trader said Monday’s trading was “very quiet” as the pair traded within a 10-cent range.
“We saw a weak dollar overnight. We’re supposed to move higher, but this is the evidence that there’s a strong desire to buy dollars despite weakening versus other currencies in the region,” the trader said in a phone interview.
Reuters reported that the dollar index edged down 0.1% to 96.481 against a basket of currencies, as weak manufacturing data increased bets that the US Federal Reserve will trim borrowing costs this year.
Meanwhile, another trader said the peso closed flat despite being “generally weaker” intraday amid “dovish” expectations ahead of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) policy meeting.
In a BusinessWorld poll, 10 out of 13 analysts expect the central bank to keep its benchmark rates steady during its review later this week as they may need more inflation data points before trimming rates.
Apart from this, the second trader said the peso closed flat amid “increasing concerns of a global growth slowdown after a slew of weaker economic data from the US last week.”
For today, the first trader expects the peso to move between P52.55 and P52.80 versus the dollar, while the other gave a P52.55P52.75 range.
“The local currency might further weaken on market positioning amid likely pivotal policy cues from the BSP and the US Federal Reserve meetings this week,” the second trader noted. •