What do you think happened to the peso? Yes, you are right, the peso jumped from a closing value of Ps54.790 on Thursday to an amazing closing of Ps47.500 on Friday after reaching an intraday strength of Ps47.000.
The volume was $101.55 million.
This is the single biggest intraday increase for the peso. That is an increase of Ps7.29.
The big winners are the Philippine government and domestic corporations with US-dollar debts.
On the other hand, several remittance agencies outside of the Philippines will get burned. Most of these remittance houses accepted dollar remittances at Ps54.79 on Thursday, which was to be remitted on Friday at Ps47.50. How can these hole in the wall remittance clerks survive this dollar crash?
Today is a historic day in the Philippines and while President Estrada went on TV at about 6 p.m. announcing a snap election wherein he would not participate, this was rejected by Gloria Arroyo, the current vice president.
President Estrada may not survive the weekend without resigning.
