Peso tumbles as dollar gains before Trump’s Iran deadline

THE PESO tumbled against the dollar on Tuesday due to renewed market uncertainty as markets monitor developments in the Middle East conflict amid a looming deadline for a deal from US President Donald J. Trump.

The local unit slid by 28 centavos to end at P60.33 against the greenback from its P60.05 finish on Monday, data from the Bankers Association of the Philippines showed.

The currency opened Tuesday’s trading session weaker at P60.18 per dollar. Its intraday high was at P60.08, while its weakest showing was its closing level of P60.33.

Dollars traded went down to $1.68 billion from $1.867 billion on Monday.

The dollar-peso closed higher on uncertainty over a resolution to the conflict in the Middle East ahead of Mr. Trump’s Tuesday deadline, the first trader said in a phone interview.

The dollar stood just shy of recent highs on Tuesday as traders counted down to a US-imposed deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping or face attacks on its infrastructure, Reuters reported.

War in the Middle East and the closure of the chokepoint in the Persian Gulf have sent energy prices soaring and driven investors to dollars as the most effective safe haven, pushing the greenback higher, especially in Asia.

Hope for some sort of deal or breakthrough held off further dollar buying over Easter, but markets were jittery and there were few sellers of dollars ahead of Mr. Trump’s 8 p.m. Eastern Time (0000 GMT) deadline. The US dollar index edged 0.05% up at 100.03. It hit 100.64 last week, its highest since May 2025.

Iran and Israel traded attacks on Tuesday as Tehran refused to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Israel said it completed a wave of airstrikes targeting Iranian government infrastructure. Defenses intercepted Iranian missiles in Israel and Saudi Arabia.

“The peso weakened after Philippine inflation for March was recorded above the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) target inflation range,” the second trader said in an e-mail.

Headline inflation quickened to 4.1% in March from 2.4% in February and 1.8% in the same month last year, the government reported on Tuesday.

This was the fastest monthly pace in nearly two years or since the 4.4% in July 2024, which was also the last time that the headline print breached the BSP’s 2%-4% annual target.

March inflation was also higher than the 3.8% median estimate in a BusinessWorld poll of 18 analysts and the central bank’s 3.1%-3.9% forecast for the month.

For Wednesday, the first trader sees the peso moving between P60 and P60.50 per dollar, while the second trader said it could range from P60.20 to P60.45. — A.M.C. Sy with Reuters