SINGAPORE: Long positions in the Philippine peso hit a near two-year high and bullish bets on the Singapore dollar almost tripled to touch a two-month peak during the last two weeks, a Reuters poll showed on Thursday.
Currency market players added optimistic positions in the South Korean won and became more bullish on most emerging Asian currencies, according to the survey of nine currency analysts conducted on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Philippine's positive economic fundamentals, plus a credit rating upgrade by Standard & Poor's to one notch below investment grade helped persuade interbank players to place the largest amount of bullish bets on the peso since October 2010.
The peso is the best-performing emerging Asian currency with a 5.0 percent gain versus the dollar so far this year.
A separate Reuters survey found economists had become more optimistic about the Philippines and raised the growth outlook to 4.8 percent for this year from a previous prediction made three months ago of 3.8 percent.
Long positions in the Singapore dollar also jumped to their largest since early May as investors seeking safer assets bought the city-state's currency not only against the greenback but also against other units such as the euro and the Malaysian ringgit.
Positive bets on the won increased to the largest since early March, although South Korean central bank unexpectedly cut its benchmark interest rate last week. The local unit benefitted from continuous inflows into bonds.
This Reuters survey focused on what analysts believe are the current market positions in nine Asian emerging market currencies: Chinese yuan, South Korean won , Singapore dollar, Indonesian rupiah , Taiwan dollar, Indian rupee, Philippine peso, Malaysian ringgit and Thai baht.
The poll uses estimates of net long or short positions on a scale of minus 3 to plus 3.
A score of plus 3 indicates the market is significantly long dollars. The figures included positions held through non-deliverable forwards (NDFs).
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