Foreign portfolio investment transactions resulted in net outflows for October

November 16, 2018

Registered investments in October amounted to $953 million, reflecting a 28.2 percent increase from the $743 million figure in September, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Friday.

In contrast, this represented a 31.2 percent decline from the $1.4 billion level recorded during the same month a year ago.

About 68.8 percent of investments registered during the month were in Philippine Stock Exchange -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 (31.2 percent) and peso time deposits (less than $1 million).

Transactions in peso government securities and peso time deposits yielded net inflows of $233 million and less than $1 million, respectively; while net outflows were noted for transactions in PSE-listed securities ($301 million) and other peso debt instruments (less than $1 million).

The United Kingdom, United States (US), Singapore, Norway, and Luxembourg were the top five investor countries for the month, with combined share to total at 82.4 percent.

Outflows for the month ($1.0 billion) were lower compared to those recorded for September 2018 ($1.2 billion or by 13.8 percent) and October 2017 ($1.9 billion or by 47.6 percent). The US continued to be the main destination of outflows, receiving 77.7 percent of total remittances.

Overall transactions for the month resulted in net outflows of $68 million, an improvement from the $440 million and $563 million net outflows recorded in September 2018 and October 2017, respectively.

The deficit may be attributed to investors' reaction to the country's September inflation data coupled with the continuing trade tensions between the US and China.

Year-to-date transactions (1 Jan to 2 November 2018) yielded net inflows of $94 million compared to the $812 million net outflows for the same period last year (2 January to 3 November 2017), which is attributed to a large investment in a holding company registered this year. DMS