Peso climbs against dollar as US, China declare trade truce

THE PESO continued to strengthen versus the dollar on Monday following the positive developments in the G-20 Summit.
The local currency closed Monday’s session at P52.32 against the greenback, up 13 centavos from the P52.45-per-dollar finish last Thursday.
The peso traded stronger the whole day, opening the session at P52.35 per dollar. It climbed to as high as P52.275 intraday, while its worst showing stood at P52.395 against the US currency.
Trading volume thinned to $965.6 million from the $1.161 billion that switched hands the previous session.
A foreign exchange trader said the peso sustained its strength following the meeting of US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires where they agreed to a 90-day trade truce.
Washington has agreed not to impose the 25% tariffs on Chinese goods totalling $200 billion, while China is set to purchase products from the US to reduce the trade imbalance between the two countries.
Another trader said developments in the G-20 Summit were “quite positive” as risk sentiment prevailed in the market.
However, the second trader excluded the peso, saying it was a laggard compared with other units despite its appreciation yesterday.
“The peso traded within a tight range. It was a laggard wherein the dollar index traded lower, but dollar-peso held the P52.20-P52.30 support,” the trader added.
“We saw that agent banks aggressively bought to support the pair.”
For today, the traders expect the peso to trade within a P52.20-P52.40 range.
“The local currency might strengthen further on bets of lingering [expectations on] the easing local inflation,” the second trader noted.