Peso closes at P52.24:$1

March 5, 2019

The peso lost ground against the US dollar while the local stock index ended slightly lower on Tuesday.

The peso closed at P52.24 from the previous day's P51.72, a day after the government announced the appointment of Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno as the new governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Volume at the foreign exchange portal of the Bankers Association of the Philippines reached $1.483 billion from $1.093 billion on Monday.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index closed at 7,670.62, down 4.85 points. In the broader market, there were 115 decliners, 89 gainers while 46 shares were unchanged.

Volume reached 3.56 billion shares worth P6.6 billion from Monday's 1.02 billion shares valued at P6.2 billion.

Most traded shares were led by Ayala Land, up 0.82 percent to P43.25; SM Prime, down 2.99 percent to P37.35 and ICTSI, down 0.18 percent to P112.80. DMS