Aggressive buying of dollars by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas was responsible for the significant appreciation of the peso yesterday, traders said. Dollar purchases by the monetary authorities reportedly reached more than $ 600 million out of the $ 1.467 billion dollars that changed hands at the dealing system. It is the highest total volume of transaction ever recorded in more than two years since the Philippine Dealing and Exchange (PDEx) platform for spot currency trading was used by the market was set up. The volume, market practitioners said, should not be equated to huge foreign inflow in the country yesterday. It was purely trading. The slide in the price of oil per barrel, which dropped to around $ 128 in New York trading, set the tone for the peso to appreciate, which was further fuelled by the long positions of some banks. Some banks with long (dollar) positions started to sell down. The BSP was on the other side of the trading equation, gobbling up greens at different rates, to smoothen the appreciation," a foreign bank currency dealer said. Currency traders, though, are divided whether the peso would be able to sustain its uphill climb. Some are betting the local unit could further regain some of its lost value today while others believed there could be certain corrections. "The appreciation of P2 in a week’s time is overdone, one banking source pointed out. (FCS)

The government revised its 91-day Treasury bill rate assumption higher to 6-8 percent due to rising inflation, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Governor Diwa C. Guinigundo said yesterday. The previous benchmark rate assumption was 5.1-6.1 percent. It was adjusted higher after the central bank also raised its inflation forecast for the year to 9-11 percent from 7-9 percent. The inter-agency Development Budget Coordination Committee has already factored in the new T-bill rate assumption in revising the higher end of the growth projection to 6.6 percent from 5.7-6.5 percent. "The assumption for the 91-day T-bill is based on higher inflation forecast and the actual path of yield in the interest rate," according to the DBCC. "The range of the projected T-bill rate takes into account the higher uncertainty over a longer forecast."

With only one bidder appearing yesterday, the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) failed in privatizing the 0.8-megawatt Amlan hydropower plant in Negros Oriental. To avoid declaring "failure of bidding," PSALM just reportedly opted to schedule a rebid for the facility’s divestment. Despite this setback, PSALM still has raised hopes in the scheduled auction of the 747-megawatt Tiwi and Makiling-Banahaw (MakBan) plants next week. Industry stakeholders, in fact, opined that PSALM’s failure to privatize Amlan is still "too early an indication" if the continuing privatization of state-run National Power Corporation (NPC) would suffer setbacks. Eyes are actually fixed now on what will happen to the Tiwi-MakBan bidding. PSALM just recently apprised bidders on the mandatory rehabilitation of Units 5 and 6 of the MakBan plant that they buyer shall bear. This would be on top of the additional $ 85 million that the winning bidder must shell out for the drilling of 11 wells to shore up steam supply for the facilities. (MMV)

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday approved Ayala-owned Community Innovations, Inc.’s (CII) change of corporate name to Alveo Land Corporation. In a previous disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), CII, through parent firm Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) said the change in corporate name forms part of its continuing brand building initiatives. The disclosure added that the change of name from CII to Alveo Land aims to enhance the name recall of the company as ALI’s middle-income housing arm. CII, now known as Alveo Land, is the developer of The Columns Legazpi Village, Two Serendra, Celadon Residences, Marquee Place, and Verdana Homes Mamplasan. The company’s latest project is called Treveia, which is its first venture in Nuvali a sprawling new metropolis seven times the size of Makati CBD to rise in the South.