KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 17 — The ringgit continued to open lower today as the greenback gained further strength with the United States (US) October’s Retail Sales increasing more than the expected growth of 1.7 per cent month-on-month against 1.4 per cent expansion as anticipated by the consensus.
At 9am, the local note fell 75 basis points (bps) to 4.1720/1755 versus the greenback from 4.1645/1680 at yesterday’s close.
Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd chief economist Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid said this suggests that Americans were unperturbed by the inflationary pressures and continued to spend, leading to higher odds that interest rate hike could happen sooner.
”The US dollar was higher against major currencies such as the euro and yen and this has been reflected by the sustained rise in the US Dollar Index (DXY) to 95.928 points,” he told Bernama.
As such, he expects the ringgit to stay weak today and may continue to hover between RM4.16 and RM4.17.
Meanwhile, the local note was traded higher against a basket of major currencies.
The ringgit was higher against the British pound at 5.6005/6052 from 5.6050/6097 at yesterday’s close, increased vis-a-vis the Japanese yen to 3.6341/6375 from 3.6543/6569, strengthen versus the euro to 4.7235/7275 from 4.7313/7353, and rose against the Singapore dollar at 3.0740/0770 from 3.0755/0783 previously.
— Bernama
