More foreign funds pull out of Philippines in September
Foreign portfolio investments continued to pull out from the Philippines in September owing to the full-blown trade war between the US and China, the weak peso, rising inflation and the damage from typhoon Ompong. Data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed total outflows reached US$440 million in September, reversing the net inflow of US$225.85 million in August. The data also showed that inflows plunged by nearly 43 percent to US$743.31 million in September from US$1.29 billion in the same month last year, while outflows amounted to $1.18 billion. BSP said about 85.7% of the inflows came from the United Kingdom, the US, Switzerland, and Malaysia, and went primarily through the Philippine Stock Exchange, particularly into holding firms, banks, property developers, food beverage and tobacco as well as telecom providers. Portfolio investments are speculative capital flows that move very quickly in and out of markets.
