Foreign portfolio investments or “hot money” posted a net inflow of $451 million in June, a reversal of the $522-million net outflow a year ago on sustained investors’ optimism, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Thursday.
The June figure was also a sharp improvement from the $73-million net inflow in May 2016. Total inflows in June climbed to $1.8 billion from $1.7 billion a year ago, while outflows declined to $1.4 billion from $2.2 billion.
This brought foreign inflows in the first half to $580 million, lower than the $638-million net inflows a year ago.
About 83.8 percent of investments were in Philippine Stock Exchange-listed securities. The balance of 15.7 percent were investments in peso government securities, while the 0.5 percent were invested in other peso debt instruments.
