Foreign portfolio investment transactions yield net inflows in January 

February 14, 2019

Registered investments for  January amounted to $2.1 billion, increasing by 30.5 percent compared to $1.6 billion inflows for December 2018, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said Thursday.

Inflows grew 27 percent growth relative to levels recorded a year ago ($1.6 billion).

About 71.6 percent of investments in January were in PSE-listed securities (pertaining mainly to holding firms, property companies, banks, food, beverage and tobacco companies, and retail companies), while the 28.4 percent balance went to peso government securities and peso time deposits.

The United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, Norway, and Hong Kong were the top five investor countries for the month, with combined share to total at 74.7 percent. 

Outflows for the month ($1.299 billion) were lower compared to figures recorded for December 2018 ($1.302 billion or by 0.2 percent) and January 2018 ($1.5 billion or by 11.1 percent). The US continued to be the main destination of outflows, receiving 78.4 percent of total remittances. 

On the overall, transactions for the month yielded net inflows of $763 million, an improvement from the $278 million and $162 million net inflows recorded last month and for January 2018, respectively.

This may be attributed to investor optimism arising from the easing trade tension between the US and China and the decline in inflation alongside the increase in net foreign buying in PSE-listed shares in January, the central bank said.

Net inflows were noted for the following investment instruments: PSE-listed securities ($506 million); peso government securities ($256 million); and peso time deposits (less than $1 million), while transactions in other peso debt instruments resulted in net outflows of less than $1 million. DMS