U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks at election night rally in Manhattan, New York, US, November 9, 2016. Mike Segar, Reuters

MANILA – The peso weakened to the P49-per-dollar level on Monday, to its lowest in nearly eight years, as expectations US president-elect Donald Trump would increase spending boosted the greenback.

The peso opened at P49.010 and touched its lowest level since March 2009 in early trading. It closed at P48.950 on Friday.

The dollar touched a nine-month peak in Asia on Monday, on a tear since Trump’s shock win against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Nov. 8 triggered a sell-off in treasuries.

“Markets are more sentiment driven. A lot of the panic moves in the market happened in the past 2 weeks. Moving forward, 49 to 50 is a very important threshold. At the moment, there should be no reason to break that and cause even more worry,” DA Market Securities chief equity strategist Nisha Alicer told ANC’s “Market Edge with Cathy Yang.”

The Philippine Stock Exchange Index was down 1.42 percent to 6.876.25 points in early trading, as investors gauged the domestic impact of a Trump presidency in the country’s third largest trading partner.

“There was a panic buy in the US, wherein they’ve reversed the position, they’re actually more positive. It’s just a matter of realigning your portfolios towards what possibly would be Trump-friendly companies,” she said.

Alicer said companies unlikely to be affected by a Trump win are those engaged in infrastructure and consumption, especially with a strong dollar boosting the peso value of remittances of overseas Filipinos.

Property companies who have minimal exposure to business process outsourcing companies or those who have diversified into tourism while hosting BPOs would also be able to weather Trump’s protectionist policies., she said.