The Philippine peso closed at P46.815 to $1 on Monday, the lowest since June 7, 2010. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said it's a result of a change in the Chinese yuan and the drop in international oil prices.
Lowest in dollar terms, but it was better in pound sterling terms about this time last year, just above 74 at the end of July and above 75 in January 2014 This graph illustrates my personal pain and I guess many others on here including OFW's No doubt we be back down in the mid to low 60's by Christmas when all the foreign currency starts to flow into the country.
Yep, I remember those heady years too Fortunately that was a time we managed to buy a couple of properties. Here's an interesting table:- (sorry don't know how to insert an image or a table) Year Average Rate 2000 67 2001 73 2002 77 2003 88 2004 102 2005 100 2006 94 2007 92 2008 81 2009 74 2010 69 2011 69 2012 67 2013 66 2014 73 2015 68 Average = 79 Source
We bought our place in Tacloban in 2005 when the exchange rate was good. Because we (or rather Elsa) used the Pag-Ibig House Purchase scheme to buy it, the effective monthly payments went from the equivalent of £50 a month to almost £80 due to falling pound.
Grab any image using say the snipping tool in windows and just copy and paste directly into your reply and it will work
Yeah 2004-2007 were my best years there just in terms of what we could do and where we could afford to go and I was still in business back then so I had a lot of time off. If this new Asian crisis keeps up we might see it back up at 80 but I doubt it will go much higher than that.
I think we'll be lucky to see anything above P75 but you never know. Currency bets these days are very complex. If it gets to P80 I'll buy another house to rent.
The pound generally goes up against the peso each time there is a hint of interest rate rises, so we might find that in a few years it edges higher, fingers crossed.
Most likely it won't. It was by design why the Yuan fell. Chinese exports were getting expensive. Even though China is now a world power, it is still a manufacturing country. The Chinese government had to make a decision on whether to just let it continue or make stringent measures. Hence, they devalued the Yuan. Lots of foreign investors panicked, which is normal so they started selling off their shares from the Chinese Stock Markets. Then it spiraled to the NASDAQ, Dow Jones, LSE, etc. Then partner that with the still dropping oil/petrol prices, then it affected all other currencies. 'There's a saying in Filipino, 'Kapag umutot ang mga Intsik, lahat makaka-amoy. (If all the Chinese farted, everybody would be able to smell it.)' Remember, most businesses here in the Philippines are owned by the Chinese or those with Chinese-blood. So you can see how it all connects.
And therein lies the conundrum, how can China be America's biggest lender, when Chinese debt is getting close on double the size of the entire American annual economy. A lot of that money is owed to themselves, the rest to us as in our pension and stock investments and a lot of it is circular like the credit default swaps, where I insure you on a loan you have taken out and then resell my risk to the next bloke who sells the risk to the next bloke who eventually sells the risk back to you (the Chinese in this case) and all of it fantasy economics, the numbers are not really real in 'real' terms. This is the stuff that wars are made of, will be interesting to see where it all goes.
