Foreign portfolio investments or hot money yielded net outflows of $103 million in July, lower than the $342-million net outflows in June, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Thursday.
The net outflows in July this year were also smaller than the $340-million net outflows recorded in July 2021.
The latest figure brought the hot money transactions in the first seven months to net inflows of $625 million, a turnaround from the $446-million net outflows a year earlier.
Data from the BSP showed that gross outflows in July amounted to $784 million, outpacing the $681-million gross inflows.
The $681 million registered investments in July reflected a decrease of 34.5 percent from $1.0-billion registered in June.
About 64.8 percent of these investments were registered in Philippine Stock Exchange-listed securities, mainly in holding firms; food, beverage and tobacco; property; banks; and transportation services.
The balance went to investments in peso government securities (35.2 percent).
Investments in July mostly came from the United Kingdom, United States, Singapore, Hong Kong and Luxembourg with a combined share of 84.7 percent.
Portfolio investments are also called “hot money” because of the ease they are invested in and taken out of the domestic financial markets.
Hot money in 2021 posted net outflows of $1.4 billion, a reversal of the $8.2-billion net inflows in 2020, as the pandemic continued to impact the global financial markets. The BSP expects hot money to yield net inflows of $4.5 billion this year.