‘Hot money’, mainly from US, continued to leave PH in November
Transactions on central bank-registered foreign portfolio investments for November 2019 yielded net outflow of $345 million as a result of the $1.5 billion outflow and $1.2 billion inflow for the month, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Thursday (Dec. 19).
This was in contrast to the net inflow noted in October 2019 of $105 million, the BSP said in a statement.
The $1.2 billion registered investments reflected a 4.5 percent decrease from the $1.3 billion figure in October.
Short-term “hot money” inflow remained in the red with a net total of $1.57 billion leaving the Philippine economy in the first 11 months of 2019 compared to $925 million that left in the same period in 2018.
A total of 86.4 percent of investments registered during the month were in PSE-listed securities — pertaining mainly to holding firms, banks, property companies, food, beverage and tobacco firms, and transportation services companies.
The remaining 13.6 percent went to investments in peso-denominated government securities.
The United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong and Luxembourg were the top five investor countries for the month, with combined share of 78.6 percent of total.
Outflow of hot money in November, $1.5 billion, was higher than $1.1 billion last October.
At least 73.4 percent of hot money leaving had originated from the United States.
According to the BSP several factors could be behind the bigger outflow of hot money—stalled trade deals between the US and China, impeachment of US President Donald Trump, passage of bill in the US backing Hong Kong protests, and “rebalancing” of Morgan Stanley Capital International Philippines Index that “reflected new weightings.”
Registered investments were 41.4 percent lower in 2019 than $2 billion recorded in November 2018.
