Market & Mainstreet
Peso Hits Fresh Record Low as PH Factory Output Hits Near-Decade High, Jollibee Picks HK Over US
The Daily Scan – September 2, 2026 (Tue)
The Philippine peso slid to a fresh record low of P62.40 to the dollar on Tuesday, its second straight record-low close, even as manufacturing activity expanded at its fastest pace in nearly a decade on stronger new orders and export demand. Jollibee advanced plans to list its international business on the Hong Kong exchange rather than the US, and Pantheon Macroeconomics argued the BSP’s rate-hike cycle is likely already over as inflation cools faster than the central bank expects. Globally, Shein’s Hong Kong stock market debut ended flat after a rocky first day on trade and regulatory worries, China’s factory activity contracted for a second straight month despite a rebound in exports, and John Ternus formally succeeded Tim Cook as Apple’s chief executive, inheriting a company racing to catch up in AI.
| PHP/USDl | PH Manufacturing PMI | China Manufacturing PMI |
| Fresh record low, P62.40 | 54.9, near-decade high | 49.8, 2nd month contraction |
SECTION 1 · Philippines
● Peso plunges to fresh record low of P62.40, second straight historic close
WHAT HAPPENED
The peso weakened 13.5 centavos from Friday’s record low of P62.265 to close at P62.40 on Tuesday, the first trading day after a holiday weekend, as broad US dollar strength continued to pressure the currency. UnionBank chief economist Ruben Carlo Asuncion attributed the slide to rising US Treasury yields, growing expectations of a Federal Reserve rate hike, and higher oil prices amid escalating Middle East tensions.
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Asuncion said the peso could remain under pressure as markets focus on upcoming US economic data and the Fed’s September policy decision, but didn’t specify how much further weakness that implies.
WHY IT MATTERS
Notably, the currency’s drop was ignored by the stock market Tuesday, with the PSEi climbing 2.31 percent as investors hunted bargains after four straight losing sessions, a signal that equity investors and currency traders are reading very different things into the same macro backdrop right now.
RISK
Two consecutive record-low closes suggest the peso’s weakness is becoming a trend rather than a one-off move, businesses with near-term dollar obligations should plan accordingly.
NEXT MOVE
Watch the Fed’s mid-September policy decision closely, Asuncion’s own framing ties further peso weakness directly to that single event, giving you a concrete date to plan financing decisions around.
● Factory growth accelerates to near-decade high, PMI hits 54.9 in August
WHAT HAPPENED
The S&P Global Philippines Manufacturing PMI rose to 54.9 in August from 51.8 in July, the fourth straight month of expansion and the strongest reading since December 2016. New orders grew at their fastest pace in six months and export orders rose for the first time in six months, while manufacturers stepped up hiring at the strongest pace in 21 months.
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RCBC chief economist Michael Ricafort said the pickup is consistent with strong AI-related electronics and semiconductor exports plus seasonal pre-Christmas purchasing, but cautioned that higher oil, shipping, and logistics costs could still squeeze manufacturers’ margins going forward.
WHY IT MATTERS
This is the clearest concrete evidence yet that the manufacturing sector has genuinely moved past the flat performance caused by the Middle East conflict, landing the same day as a record-low peso, a reminder that currency weakness and real economic momentum aren’t always moving in the same direction.
OPPORTUNITY
Business confidence rose to its highest level since November 2024, with firms expecting higher output over the next year, a genuine tailwind for manufacturers weighing expansion or new product lines right now.
NEXT MOVE
If you’re a manufacturer or supplier to manufacturers, Ricafort’s point about national government infrastructure spending catching up is worth tracking directly, it’s flagged as the key swing factor for whether this momentum holds into Q4.
● Jollibee picks Hong Kong over the US for its international unit’s listing
WHAT HAPPENED
Jollibee Foods Corp. selected Hong Kong as the listing venue for Jollibee Foods Corp. International, its overseas business, abandoning an earlier plan announced in January to list on a US exchange. The company named current CFO Richard Chong Woo Shin as CEO of the new entity and cited Hong Kong’s deep capital markets, brand recognition across Asia, and access to a broad base of global and regional investors as reasons for the switch.
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Jollibee said the proposed separation and listing remain subject to corporate restructuring, due diligence, market conditions, and required regulatory approvals, with no confirmed timeline or final terms yet.
WHY IT MATTERS
Hong Kong’s IPO market raised about $22.45 billion in the first half of 2026, up nearly 57 percent year-on-year and its busiest half in five years, a genuine pull factor pulling major Asian companies away from US listings and toward a market that understands their regional growth story more directly.
OPPORTUNITY
This is a live test case for whether Hong Kong’s revived IPO market can properly value a Philippine consumer brand’s international growth story, a data point worth watching for any Philippine company weighing its own eventual listing venue.
NEXT MOVE
If you’re evaluating listing venues for a growth business with regional ambitions, Jollibee’s stated reasoning, investor familiarity with the regional growth story over pure market size, is worth weighing directly against your own plans.
● Pantheon says BSP’s tightening cycle is likely over as inflation set to undershoot forecasts
WHAT HAPPENED
UK-based Pantheon Macroeconomics said the BSP’s revised inflation forecasts, 6.1 percent for 2026, 5.4 percent for 2027, and 3.3 percent for 2028, seem “overly pessimistic,” particularly next year’s projection, and expects the central bank to hold off on further tightening. Chief Emerging Asia Economist Miguel Chanco and Asia Economist Meekita Gupta project August inflation cooled to 6 percent from July’s 6.2 percent, a fourth straight month of easing, matching market consensus.
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Pantheon’s view runs directly against the BSP’s own more cautious stance after just delivering its third rate hike of the year, so this is one outside forecaster’s read against the central bank’s own guidance, not a confirmed policy shift.
WHY IT MATTERS
If Pantheon is right, businesses that have been bracing for a fourth BSP hike this year may be planning around an overly conservative rate assumption, worth revisiting given how directly borrowing costs feed into expansion and financing decisions.
OPPORTUNITY
If the tightening cycle genuinely has peaked, businesses that delayed financing decisions anticipating higher rates may find current levels are close to the ceiling rather than a stepping stone to further increases.
NEXT MOVE
Don’t over-anchor to either the BSP’s own cautious guidance or Pantheon’s more optimistic read alone, watch the actual August inflation print when it lands for the clearest signal on which forecast is closer to right.
SECTION 2 · Worth Knowing
● Shein’s Hong Kong debut ends flat after an early 10% slide on trade and regulatory worries
WHAT HAPPENED
Shares in fast-fashion retailer Shein fell as much as 10 percent in early Hong Kong trading before recovering to end flat, aided by stabilization measures typically applied to large listings. The stock valued the company at roughly $24 billion, far below its 2022 peak of nearly $100 billion, after setbacks including tariff changes in the US and Europe and blocked earlier attempts to list in New York and London.
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Saxo chief investment strategist Charu Chanana said Shein’s 15-times forward earnings valuation, more than double rival Temu owner PDD’s multiple, means investors are being asked to pay a premium despite weaker growth visibility, but demand data suggests the market broadly agrees.
WHY IT MATTERS
Shein’s business model was built on the US de minimis exemption that ended last year and a similar EU exemption that has since closed too, a structural headwind directly relevant to the ongoing debate in the Philippines over whether to scrap its own de minimis threshold for low-value imports.
RISK
Cross-border e-commerce businesses built around duty-free thresholds should treat the end of these exemptions in major markets as a durable trend, not a one-off policy change, when planning pricing and logistics.
NEXT MOVE
If your business model depends on low-value cross-border shipping exemptions, Shein’s valuation reset is a useful benchmark for how markets are pricing that risk, worth factoring into your own growth assumptions.
● China’s factory activity contracts for a second straight month, though less than feared
WHAT HAPPENED
China’s official manufacturing PMI edged up to 49.8 in August from 49.2 in July, still below the 50 threshold separating expansion from contraction but better than the 49.6 economists had forecast. New export orders rebounded to 50.1 from 49.6, signaling a recovery in overseas demand even as the non-manufacturing gauge covering construction and services stayed flat at 49.
UNCERTAIN
Economists expect better growth for the rest of the year as adverse weather fades and local governments accelerate fiscal spending, but a separate private-sector PMI survey due the same week was expected to show a rosier picture, so which gauge better reflects underlying conditions remains genuinely contested.
WHY IT MATTERS
China remains the Philippines’ largest trading partner, and a second straight month of factory contraction alongside a genuine export rebound is a mixed signal worth tracking for any Philippine business with China-linked supply chains or export exposure.
OPPORTUNITY
The rebound in Chinese export orders suggests global demand for manufactured goods is holding up better than the headline contraction implies, relevant context for Philippine exporters competing in the same downstream markets.
NEXT MOVE
Watch China’s private-sector PMI reading due this week alongside the official figure, the gap between the two gauges will tell you whether the contraction is concentrated in state-owned enterprises or spreading more broadly.
● John Ternus succeeds Tim Cook as Apple CEO, inheriting an AI catch-up challenge
WHAT HAPPENED
John Ternus, 51, formally took over as Apple’s chief executive on Tuesday, ending Tim Cook’s 15-year run and replacing the operations specialist who built Apple’s supply chain with the engineer who built its hardware. Ternus joined Apple’s design team in 2001 and has led hardware engineering since 2021, and gets just over a week to settle in before Apple’s September 9 iPhone event, where a first foldable handset is expected.
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Analyst Ben Milanesi noted that even people who know Ternus as an engineer don’t yet know him as a CEO, and analyst Dan Ives predicted he’ll lean into hardware strengths while leaving Cook’s supply chain strategy intact, but how Ternus actually leads on AI strategy remains genuinely untested.
WHY IT MATTERS
Apple towers over the smartphone market but trails rivals in AI, and Ternus must balance the company’s dependence on China against political pressure from Washington, a leadership transition worth watching for any business in Apple’s supply chain or ecosystem.
OPPORTUNITY
A hardware-first CEO focused on device innovation, rather than supply-chain optimization, could signal fresh product categories or design directions worth tracking if your business builds on or around Apple’s ecosystem.
NEXT MOVE
Watch the September 9 iPhone event closely, it’s the first public test of Ternus’s leadership and will be the clearest early signal of where Apple’s product priorities are heading under new management.
SECTION 3 · THE OPPORTUNITY BEHIND THE NEWS
The Peso and the Factory Floor Are Telling Two Different Stories
A record-low peso and a near-decade-high manufacturing PMI landed on the same day. That’s not a contradiction to explain away, it’s two different parts of the economy responding to two different forces. The peso is being driven almost entirely by external factors: US Treasury yields, Fed rate expectations, and Middle East-driven oil prices. Manufacturing is responding to something more domestic: stronger new orders, AI-related electronics demand, and a genuine rebound from Q2’s conflict-driven flatness.
For founders, the lesson is to stop reading the peso as a proxy for the health of the real economy. It isn’t one right now. If your business sits closer to the manufacturing and export side of the economy, this week’s PMI print is the more relevant signal. If you’re exposed to dollar financing or import costs, the currency data matters more. Very few businesses need to weight both signals equally, most should be paying closer attention to one over the other.
SECTION 4 · FOUNDER’S LESSON
Choosing Where to List Is a Statement About Who You Think Understands You
Jollibee spent most of this year planning a US listing for its international arm, then switched to Hong Kong, citing something specific: investor familiarity with its “regional growth story.” That’s a more interesting reason than market size or liquidity. Jollibee is betting that Hong Kong investors will understand the value of Asian brand recognition and regional expansion in a way US investors, focused on a different kind of growth narrative, might not price correctly.
The broader lesson applies well beyond IPO venues. When you’re raising capital, choosing a market, or pitching a partner, the question isn’t just “who has the most money” or “who’s the biggest audience.” It’s “who already understands the shape of the story I’m telling.” A founder pitching a hyperlocal logistics business to investors who only think in global SaaS multiples is fighting an uphill battle regardless of the fundamentals. Jollibee picked the audience that speaks its language first, and let the capital follow.
SECTION 5 · ONE REAL SIGNAL
The Strongest Factory Reading in Nearly a Decade Deserves More Attention Than It’s Getting
Every headline this week is about the peso. That’s understandable, back-to-back record lows are dramatic and easy to write about. But buried underneath is a genuinely remarkable number: Philippine manufacturing just posted its strongest month since December 2016, nearly a decade of history, with output growth at its fastest pace since that same year and business confidence at its highest level since November 2024.
What makes this signal worth sitting with is the composition, not just the headline number. New export orders rose for the first time in six months. Job creation hit a 21-month high. This isn’t a fragile, single-input bounce, it’s broad-based improvement across orders, output, hiring, and confidence simultaneously, the kind of pattern that tends to be more durable than a one-month blip.
For founders in or adjacent to manufacturing, the practical read is that the sector has genuinely turned a corner from the Middle East conflict’s drag on Q2 activity, regardless of what’s happening to the currency. RCBC’s Ricafort flagged one real risk worth tracking, whether higher oil, shipping, and logistics costs eat into margins even as volumes grow, but the underlying demand recovery looks real. If you’ve been waiting for confirmation that manufacturing demand has actually returned before committing to capacity or hiring decisions, this is closer to that confirmation than anything else in recent months.
Summarized in our own words with links to every source. We don’t reproduce full articles or bypass paywalls. Interpretation is labeled as such and kept separate from reported fact.
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