# Peso slips to new historic low, nears P59:$1



## M.C.A. (Feb 24, 2013)

I'm beginning to worry, what would be the fallout from this? I've never seen this before:

The Philippine peso is now a centavo away from the P59:$1 level, as it continued its losing streak for the fifth straight trading day on Tuesday to carve a fresh record low.

The local currency lost 49 centavos to close Tuesday at P58.99:$1 versus last Friday’s close of P58.5:$1, the previous all-time low.

This is the 11th all-time low of the peso against the greenback so far this month, following previous records on September 2 (P56.77:$1), September 5 (P56.999:$1), September 6 (P57.00:$1), September 8 (P57.18:$1), September 16 (P57.43:$1), September 20 (P57.48:$1), September 21 (P58$1), and September 22 (58.49:$1).

Year-to-date, the peso has depreciated by P7.99 or 15.7% from P50.999:$1 during the last trading day of 2021.

Tuesday’s depreciation comes as the Federal Reserve last week hiked key policy rates by 75 basis points, and has since maintained a hawkish policy stance, hinting at further rate hikes moving forward. 

“Higher US interest rates or bond yields increase the attractiveness or allure of the US dollar, with high interest rate income on US currency-denominated deposits/bonds/other fixed income instruments,” Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) Chief Economist Michael Ricafort said in a mobile message.

“Local monetary authorities signaled possible surprise or off-cycle local policy rate hike/s, more intervention in the local foreign exchange markets; both of which could help stabilize the peso exchange rate, as well as overall inflation,” he added.

The Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) last week hiked policy rates by another 50 basis points, with inflation now seen to average 5.6% this year, higher than the previous forecast of 5.4%. gma full story


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## Howard_Z (7 mo ago)

Will this lower airfare to Philippines ?


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## fmartin_gila (May 15, 2011)

Never been at this level. Hard to even guess what the consequences will be. At the moment, seems good from an individual standpoint but wonder about long term. Prices seem to be rising right along with the exchange rate, plus this latest storm has destroyed a lot of rice plantings so expect more increase from that.

Fred


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## grahamw57 (May 27, 2018)

Well thank goodness (also plunging ) Sterling hangs on to the USD coat tails, is all I can say.


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## HondaGuy (Aug 6, 2012)

This will definitely impact the cost of imported goods in the Philippines.
Locally produced items should do "better" but a lot of things we don't see first hand (like fertilizer, etc) could increase costs to local farmers and thus onto locals and expats.
If you need anything imported, I'd take a page from Jon1's book and have a bunch of it shipped to a balikbayan freight forwarder and have them send it to you that way.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

Its a bit higher now than 2004 (so far but raise fast so I suppouse will continue a while).
In between USD have been WEAK even as low as 40 compared to Pesos. I dont remember when Phils said many years ago they would try to keep it around 50. 

Not odd pesos is weak now though by Phils had less for backup so got harder hit by covid. 
Much higher flight costs for tourists to come to Phils dont assist neither now when it has opened -- but some complicated. 
And OFW workers being in Phils when covid hit so they - and others wanting to become OFW - got halted to go abroad to work, which is a big part of Philippine economy indirect.. But OFW part have started recovering.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

HondaGuy said:


> This will definitely impact the cost of imported goods in the Philippines.
> Locally produced items should do "better" but a lot of things we don't see first hand (like fertilizer, etc) could increase costs to local farmers and thus onto locals and expats.
> If you need anything imported, I'd take a page from Jon1's book and have a bunch of it shipped to a balikbayan freight forwarder and have them send it to you that way.


 Yes. And make BETTER chance for many types of products made in Phils at export market, so now can be a good time to start PRODUCTION business in Phils  both of earning chance and to assist Phils.
A speach recently about advantages for foreign investors to start business in Phils. Left to see if politicians will make any improvements about things making Phils BAD for businesses. 
FSandzMarcos7 on TikTok
As ridicilous many permit demands and ineffective officials making things much slower for businesses than suppoused to be, which can be improved much... 

(Recently officials have claimed 
/we need a lot of permits for our SECOND product inspite of we do it in SAME business and the product belong to the product group the first business make!!! 
/Several demand building permit for refining building inspite of such is NOT needed at "Agricultural" classified land!!! (if it isnt changed since I did check that in detail years ago. I suppouse NOT changed because otherwice would officials become overvelmed by tiny farmers needing permit for such as 2 pigs and 5 chickens houses... 🤣
IF officials continue such claims, I told my business partner to ask officials which law and paragraph say what they claim  Left to see what will happen then. A tiny possibility an extra permit is needed for new product, but concerning building we just build anyway without bothering about officials by I am 110 % sure they are wrong  about that part. We built it "Lunkan" style anyway  so except the concreete foundation whole building can be easy demounted and moved. That make it easy to exband too if needed. Its very simple to make using one of the wall materials as messure  But we hire a building enginere to the main beams and the connection of roof, which are the only tricky parts.)

So it would be good for "everyone" if more foreigners start good businesses/invest now in Phils. Some types can foreigners own WHOLE as "export businesses". I know legalities (and sone business ideas I dont have money to start myself) and have access to more good workers (at Palawan) than I can give full time jobs to myself,, if someone want assistance.


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## grahamw57 (May 27, 2018)

And the good news.... Ph now open for business


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## art1946 (Nov 30, 2017)

the lowest I have ever seen was 46 peso to the dollar when I was living in makati. That was several years ago.

Where people get the 59 p to $1 is historic low?????

art


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## M.C.A. (Feb 24, 2013)

art1946 said:


> the lowest I have ever seen was 46 peso to the dollar when I was living in makati. That was several years ago.
> 
> Where people get the 59 p to $1 is historic low?????
> 
> art


But the price increase Art, it's also noticeable.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

art1946 said:


> the lowest I have ever seen was 46 peso to the dollar when I was living in makati. That was several years ago.
> 
> Where people get the 59 p to $1 is historic low?????


 Meaning the lowest worth of Phil PESOS, not USD


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## yakc130 (Apr 27, 2012)

So how bad are the price increases?


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## Howard_Z (7 mo ago)

I hear jeepneys in dasmarinas raised prices 50%


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## M.C.A. (Feb 24, 2013)

yakc130 said:


> So how bad are the price increases?


Trike rides were 350 pesos pre Covid but now 600 for a 13 km or 8 mile round trip with stops at the bank and then grocery, maybe a restaurant where I also provide feed the driver.

Short ride's to the provincial highway 4 km or 2.5 miles were running 40 pesos each but now I'm not sure they were 25 pesos per person. Price since has dropped the jeepney is finally running again so the trike driver's don't seem to be regulated very well, if I can avoid them I do.

Pre covid meat prices, chicken was 100 pesos but now closer to 200 pesos, pork was 280 but now 400 pesos, beef was 350 (depends on the cut) but now 500 - 600 pesos, similar prices with fish.

Vegetables have been increasing and for the last two months no white onions because they cost 400 pesos a kilo, no one will sell them.

Fruits:. Banana's are from 50 - 70 pesos a kilo but always seem damaged or not so fresh same with the apple and oranges, I have to get these now from the main city because of the poor quality of the fruits in our Municpality plus some prices are doubled, like oranges and apples.

Dinorado rice was 1100 pesos for 25 kilos but now 1300 pesos. The rice prices have been somewhat stable but now that Dinorado is climbing we buy the better Jasmine rice, I can't remember the exact price but a 50 kilo bag is 3,500 pesos.

Labor also seems much higher, I don't hire anyone anymore unless absolutely necessary, the skilled workers will want 1000 pesos like the plumber for a half day job, similar with electrical or appliance's, if you don't pay them this rate, then they're always busy when you call them.


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

Swings and merry go rounds.

I remember working here in PH for a US based company 11 or 12 years ago and I was paid in US dollars and the exchange rate back then AU $ 1.05 to the US dollar,,,,,, now I see AU $ .64 to the greenback. Normally 70 to 75.
AU $ to Peso under 38.
Filling the car 2 years ago cost around P 2,000, now P 4,000. 
We fueled up last week and the bike in front of us handed the operator 50 pesos for a little fuel,,, sad. Like Mark said all the prices are rising and it's not endemic to the Philippines.

Spend wisely because it's probably going to get worse,,,,, says me employing 9 to 10 guys and watching my investments in Australia dropping big time. A few years and it will rebound as it usually does.

Optimism guys just hunker down and weather the storm no matter the country.

Cheers, Steve.


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## amcan13 (Sep 28, 2021)

It is good news for American's having a strong dollar and good exchange rate. Cash those dollars in for peso's. 
Unfortunately the Philippines will have to follow suit and raise interest rates and try and stabilize the peso. This will raise prices in the Philippines, as noted. Ofcourse regular Filipino's have no offsetting factors like a better exchange rate that we have. The inflation will also result in higher COA from Social Security, another good thing for being here. 
The trouble is prices never seem to go down like they go up when things change. 
Best to take advantage of the strong dollar for capital investments and purchase of high cost items.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

amcan13 said:


> The trouble is prices never seem to go down like they go up when things change.


 Yes. Except ecxtreem situation as covid both raised and lowered different costs much.
/Real estate droped much, specialy tourist places became very cheap bargains by they got crisis.
/Not local went UP much if available at all. 
/LOCAL farmers products in season got cheaper by traders, who normaly came to buy and send elsewhere couldnt go, so more farmers had to try to sell mostly same things in farmers market. One foreigner said it was around double as many sellers at farmers market than normal. A funny story related:
He and his Filipina wife walked separate each looked for what each wanted self. He wanted to buy avocado - rarely grown in that province - and found direct at entrance.
-How much?
-40.
He found that to expensive so he did spend much time looking through all the many stands, but didnt find any. When it was time to leave, he did send his wife to buy cheaper:
-How much?
-40.
Which was very CHEAP by it was per kilo, not for each as the foreigner had believed 🤣


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## art1946 (Nov 30, 2017)

hey steve,

I think the rising prices are around the world. To buy a candy bar here is $2.78 now. I have never seen anything like this. We still have fairly cheap gas. It is $3.13 a gal in florida. In California it is almost $6 a gallon. I have no ideal what people will do in the future.

Art


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## art1946 (Nov 30, 2017)

59p to $1 compared to 42p to $1 several years ago. When I first came there the dollar value was low. Is the 59p good or bad now. I saw the peso at 42p to $1. How would it be compared?

Has the inflation go up that high that the 59p is not worth as much?

art


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## Howard_Z (7 mo ago)

art1946 said:


> hey steve,
> 
> I think the rising prices are around the world. To buy a candy bar here is $2.78 now. I have never seen anything like this. We still have fairly cheap gas. It is $3.13 a gal in florida. In California it is almost $6 a gallon. I have no ideal what people will do in the future.
> 
> Art


Well, you know what you need to do.
Election is coming up.
Figure out who causes the problems
and who will fix the problems.


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## art1946 (Nov 30, 2017)

Howard_Z

I can not see any official causing a candy bar go to $2.78. I don't buy them with all that sugar but it is terrible to be that high.

The stores are taking advantage of people.

art


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

art1946 said:


> 59p to $1 compared to 42p to $1 several years ago. When I first came there the dollar value was low. Is the 59p good or bad now. I saw the peso at 42p to $1. How would it be compared?
> 
> Has the inflation go up that high that the 59p is not worth as much?
> 
> art


Inflation in the Philippines has been high for years, It's not as cheap here as it was 20 years ago. Inflation contrary to what the government says is running away here.


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## art1946 (Nov 30, 2017)

Gary

When I first came there it was 42p to the $1. I don't remember what i paid for things then. The highest I saw was 56P to the $1. When I came there I did not convert very much money into the peso because it was so low.

I think inflation is going out of site. a bottle of 20oz soda is $2.68, candy bar at $2.78, bag of potato chips is $2.29. I sandwich is $4.99. Our dollar value is really getting bad here in the states.

I get around $188 on SS the first of the year. With the inflation the $188 is gone.

art


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

art1946 said:


> I think inflation is going out of site. a bottle of 20oz soda is $2.68, candy bar at $2.78, bag of potato chips is $2.29. I sandwich is $4.99. Our dollar value is really getting bad here in the states.


 Imported or domestic? Imported get EXTRA inflation by low valued pesos


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

It's all relative, I hear the crying over the increased prices here by 5 and 10% but the US dollar has risen some 20% in the last 6 months against the Peso.

OMO.

Cheers, Steve


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## M.C.A. (Feb 24, 2013)

art1946 said:


> hey steve,
> 
> I think the rising prices are around the world. To buy a candy bar here is $2.78 now. I have never seen anything like this. We still have fairly cheap gas. It is $3.13 a gal in florida. In California it is almost $6 a gallon. I have no ideal what people will do in the future.
> 
> Art


Art, American candy bars would be much cheaper here so are you sure about that price?


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## art1946 (Nov 30, 2017)

hey Mark

yeah I am sure about price. the round mint panties are $1.99 each. maybe in Walmart might be a little cheaper. I am talking about the convenient stores like Wawa, 7-11 and etc. The regular bars are $2.78 each. I stop getting them. i don't go to Walmart to many people, so I don't know how much they are there. Even coke in a 20 oz bottle is $2.68 each.

things have go out of site here.

art


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## M.C.A. (Feb 24, 2013)

art1946 said:


> hey Mark
> 
> yeah I am sure about price. the round mint panties are $1.99 each. maybe in Walmart might be a little cheaper. I am talking about the convenient stores like Wawa, 7-11 and etc. The regular bars are $2.78 each. I stop getting them. i don't go to Walmart to many people, so I don't know how much they are there. Even coke in a 20 oz bottle is $2.68 each.
> 
> ...


Walmart after Midnight is the best time to go and no people. My gosh, 7-Eleven triples the price of candy even here or just about any convenience store, For example, the Goya chocolate bar is 18 pesos in PureGold grocery but at 7-Eleven it's 56 pesos.


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## Howard_Z (7 mo ago)

The largest cause of inflation is the US government spending outlandish amounts of money - increasing the money supply - more money chasing existing supply of goods and services.

Summers - the economic advisor to Clinton and Biden white house - cautioned congress to not spend so much money as it will cause inflation - congress ignored him and other top economic advisors - and this is what we got.



https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/26/economy/inflation-larry-summers-biden-fed/index.html


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## Howard_Z (7 mo ago)

GAZETTE: Is that the result of the pandemic itself versus policy responses to the pandemic versus other things?


SUMMERS: It’s two blades of a scissors. I’m not sure that we would have the inflation if there had never been a pandemic and, even if there had been a pandemic, without the overwhelming stimulus that was applied well into recovery — during 2021. We had an economy where income was running short by $50 billion a month because of the pandemic, and we injected $150 billion to $200 billion a month into that economy. It’s perhaps not surprising that that’s led to an overflow of demand, which has generated inflation that on the CPI [Consumer Price Index] measure has risen to 7 percent.









Larry Summers on inflation, the Fed, the year ahead


Inflation’s re-emergence leaves the guardians of the U.S. economy with a tricky balance to strike, cooling the economy with interest rate hikes while avoiding recession, Harvard’s Lawrence Summers said.




news.harvard.edu


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## Howard_Z (7 mo ago)

"There's never been a moment when we had inflation over 4% and unemployment below 4%, when we didn't have a recession within the next two years. Inflation is now well above 4%. Unemployment is now well below 4%, especially if you adjust for vacancies. So I think it's pretty likely that we're going to have a recession sometime within the next two years. I'm more confident about that than I am about what's going to happen to interest rates.” 



https://finance.yahoo.com/news/larry-summers-inflation-whats-next-120032808.html


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

Howard_Z said:


> "There's never been a moment when we had inflation over 4% and unemployment below 4%, when we didn't have a recession within the next two years. Inflation is now well above 4%. Unemployment is now well below 4%, especially if you adjust for vacancies. So I think it's pretty likely that we're going to have a recession sometime within the next two years. I'm more confident about that than I am about what's going to happen to interest rates.”
> 
> 
> 
> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/larry-summers-inflation-whats-next-120032808.html


 Realy? Sweden had inflation over 4% and unemployment below 4% "all the time" back before western countries started outsoursing much.

After the much outsoursing I believe unemployment under 4 % only twisted "statistics"  Back when outsoursing were a rather new big problem, the OFFICIAL unemplotment in Sweden was 8 % but a research did show the REAL was 20 %...


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## Tiz (Jan 23, 2016)

Unemployment will continue to grow.

Recent advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence will lead to the obsolescence of many human workers.
In advanced economies, anything that can be outsourced to cheaper locations is also being done at exponential rates.

Some are even predicting there will be universal basic incomes provided by the government for everyone, under the assumption that work will become scarce.

High unemployment used to be a measure of a poor economy, but it could become a measure of progress.


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Whilst we all clamour for cheaper and cheaper products outsourcing is not going away. Trump trying to bring everything home just increases prices exponentially.


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## Howard_Z (7 mo ago)

The definition of recession in the USA is 2 consecutive quarters with declining GDP. So, the USA has been in a recession for 3 months already.

Biden's White House tries to change the definition of recession,
just like they changed the definition of vaccine (CDC removed "immunity" from the official definition)

The USA has inflation at 40 year highs

USA murder rate at 25 year high.









US murder rate highest it's been in 25 years as big cities shatter records


The 2021 United States murder rate is estimated to be nearly as high as it was in 25 years ago, when more than 19,600 people were killed nationwide, according to statistics shared in a recent report.




www.foxnews.com





So, maybe living in 3rd world countries is better than the USA ?
and the PHP/USD conversion rate is just icing on the cake ?


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

Howard_Z said:


> So, maybe living in 3rd world countries is better than the USA ?
> and the PHP/USD conversion rate is just icing on the cake ?


It depends of that you aim at. 
SE Asia have had much better economical development than North America and West Europe during many years. (I saw it coming allready during the 1990-ties, because of the big outsoursing of production. "Western" countries cant live like that long time without geting problem. (E g USA have got lowered credit classification. Sweden have problem e g with financing of retirement pay, government stole from my generation change the system to not count all years anymore.)

The long trend have been like that during many years - until covid screwed up.. Poor countries as Phils have much less assets for backup, so they got hit much harder economical.


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Lunkan said:


> WHITE rice can be bad messure of inflation because it has subsidice. For domestic. I suppouse changes by season too.


Not that simple, some very poor farmers receive cash grants and NFA rice which is the lowest quality, I believe imported, is subsidised. In general rice isn't.


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

Lunkan said:


> If white rice isnt subsidised, how come brown rice cost much more, inspite of it become much less kilo white rice than brown rice per kilo milled? (because of in white rice is more taken away, so almost no nutrision left in white rice).


So true Lunkan, A lot like Diesel fuel being easier and cheaper to produce than regular high octane fuels. Opportunity knocks on all doors.

Cheers, Steve.


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