Weekend Shots (Saturday, January 05, 2019). Hey Millennials out there, why don’t we share our first Weekend Shots for 2019 together? Weekend Shots is iMillennial’s Saturday night summary of local market and economic news and events over the week.
#SwabeLang: Wow! Our local stocks have just been tagged as the world’s best performers since the start of trading for 2019, with the Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) climbing for a third straight session and closed at 7,761.11 yesterday. It can be remembered that the index sank 13 percent last year, its worst for ten years since 2008 (Bloomberg).
Local stock market investors and traders must have been finally eyeing the market for strategic recovery from capital losses. Equally, it’s a perfect season for market entry among aspiring stock investors.
#LakasTama: The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) will be implementing higher service fees come January 2019. Accordingly, these are the expected fees: inter-region cash deposit fee (PHP50), inter-region withdrawal fee (PHP100), and over-the-counter withdrawals (of accounts with ATM cards, PHP100) (WhenInManila).
It’s disappointing given that banks offer really meager savings deposit interest rates. In an opinion, it’s always better to keep our hard-earned money in other investment instruments other than banks. After all, cash savings do not beat inflation.
#SwabeLang: Inflation slowed down further to 5.1% in December, from 6% in November and 6.7% in September last year (CNNPhilippines). FYI, inflation is the quantitative measure of the rate at which the average price level of goods and services in an economy increases over a period of time.
When inflation rate is high, there is also a high decrease in the purchasing power of our currency. Inflation slowdown therefore means that prices somehow stabilize. That’s good news then!
#LakasTama: Nothing new, oil price hike is expected as early as January 2019. The Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law imposed a P2.50 per liter excise tax on diesel, from zero, and hiked the levy on gasoline to P7.00 per liter on January 01, 2018. Under the same law, fuel excise taxes will go up by P2.00 per liter starting the first day of 2019. Accordingly, the excise tax on diesel will go up to P4.50 per liter and on gasoline to P9.00. The second round of excise tax increase on petroleum products officially took effect on Tuesday, January 01, 2019 after a year, but the DOE expects it to be reflected on fuel prices by the middle of this month (MSN).
I don’t own any car (nor even most of you as I believe), but as common Filipinos, we don’t know the impact on public transportation fare.
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