March foreign portfolio investments result in net outflows: BSP

April 17, 2019

Foreign portfolio investment transactions resulted in net outflows in March, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said Wednesday.

Transactions for the month yielded net outflows of $739 million, resulting from gross outflows of $2.5 billion and gross inflows of $1.7 billion.

By instrument, net inflows of US$2 million was noted for Unit Investment Trust Funds (UITF) while net outflows were recorded for all other investment instruments: securities listed at the Philippine Stock Exchange: $379 million); Peso government securities: $361 million); and other portfolio instruments (less than $2 million).

Gross inflows increased by 22.8 percent from the $1.4 billion figure in February.

About 66.5 percent of investments registered during the month were in PSE-listed securities (pertaining mainly to holding firms, food, beverage and tobacco companies, property firms, banks, and transportation services companies); while 33.4 percent went to Peso GS and the 0.1 percent balance went to UITFs.

The United Kingdom, the United States , Singapore, Luxembourg, and Hong Kong were the top five investor countries for the month, with combined share to total at 80.3 percent.

Similarly, gross outflows for the month $2.5 billion were higher compared to figures recorded for Februar's $1.1 billion or by 130.8 percent.

This may be attributed to large outflows from Peso GS amounting to $939 million for March vis-à-vis the $154 million recorded in February.

The US continued to be the main destination of outflows, receiving 76.8 percent of total remittances.

Year-on-year, a 29.8 percent decline in gross inflows was noted from the $2.5 billion level during the same month last year, while gross outflows increased by 84.9 percent from its US$1.3 billion level in March 2018. DMS