Foreign portfolio investments registered in November amounted to $1.1 billion, down by 18.5 percent and 5.2 percent from figures recorded the previous month and a year ago, respectively, the central bank said Saturday.

About 80.8 percent of investments registered during the month were in PSE-listed securities (pertaining mainly to holding firms, banks, food, beverage and tobacco companies, property companies, and utilities firms).

The 19.2 percent balance went to peso government securities whose transactions yielded net inflows of $213 million.

Meanwhile, transactions for the following instruments resulted in net outflows: PSE-listed securities - $105 million and other peso debt instruments ? less than $1 million.

The United States (US), the United Kingdom, Singapore, Norway, and Luxembourg were the top five investor countries for the month, with combined share to total at 73.5 percent.

Outflows for the month of $1.0 billion were lower by 47.6 percent and 43.2 percent than the $1.9 billion and $1.8 billion recorded in October 2017 and November 2016, respectively. The US continued to be the main destination of outflows, receiving 90.3 percent of total remittances.

On the overall, transactions for the month yielded net inflows of $108 million, a reversal from the net outflows recorded in October ($563 million) and November last year ($607 million). This may be attributed to positive investor reaction to: i) news of favorable third-quarter corporate earnings;

ii) outcome of and pronouncements during the recently concluded 31st Asean Summit; and iii) the Senate’s approval of a higher personal income tax exemption of P250,000.00 annually, as part of the Senate version of the government’s tax reform program.

Year-to-date transactions resulted in net outflows of $635 million, in contrast to the $673 million net inflows for the comparative period last year. This may be attributed to certain domestic and international developments (including the interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve, global terrorist attacks, North Korea’s nuclear missile testing and the closure order for several mining companies in the country. DMS