ENDS WITH A BANG. PSE President and CEO Hans Sicat, PSE Director Vivian Yuchengco, and PSE Chief Operating Officer Roel Refran at the last trading day ceremonies on December 28. Photo courtesy of the PSE.

MANILA, Philippines - The all-time record highs at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) and the country's healthy economic growth rates attracted a flurry of foreign investors in 2012, bringing the annual hot money to US$18.5 billion, the highest in 10 years.

In a statement on Thursday, January 17, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said this aggregate registered foreign portfolio investment was 12% more than the $16.5 billion recorded in 2011.

In December alone, over $1.7 billion funds flowed into the local capital markets, reflecting a 67% increase from the same period a year ago, but 13.3% lower than November's as investors cashed in on gains from the record performance of the PSE.

Hot money, or the foreign-held funds seeking safe havens to diversify their portfolio assets, flowed mostly to PSE-listed securities (75.2%) and the others to the peso-denominated government securities (24.7%).

The main beneficiaries of the PSE-bound funds were the following:

• holding firms, $311 million
• banks, 276 million
• properties, $215 million
• telecommunication, $155 million
• utility, $136 million

Over the entire year, the main sources of portfolio funds were:

• United Kingdom
• United States
• Signapore
• Hong Kong
• Luxembourg

- Rappler.com