KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 3 — The ringgit ended marginally higher against the US dollar today but remained in a relatively tight trading range due to falling crude oil prices, an analyst said.
At 6 pm, the local note stood at 4.1835/1850 versus the greenback from Monday’s close of 4.1840/1870.
The market resumed trading today after being closed on Feb 1 and 2 for the Chinese New Year holiday (CNY).
At press time, the benchmark Brent crude oil price fell 0.91 per cent to US$88.66 per barrel.
The analyst said the daily Covid-19 tally in the country breached the 5,000-mark for the third straight day, with 5,720 new cases reported in the past 24 hours, causing the local currency to trade sideways.
He said the ringgit market was fairly quiet this week as players are still in holiday mood due to the CNY celebration.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the total number of infections now stand at 2,882,060.
Meanwhile, the ringgit was traded lower against a basket of other major currencies.
It eased against the Singapore dollar to 3.1007/1021 from Monday’s close of 3.0899/0925 and declined versus the euro to 4.7207/7224 compared with 4.6777/6811.
The domestic unit depreciated against the British pound to 5.6716/6736 from 5.6262/6303 on Monday and went down vis-a-vis the Japanese yen to 3.6458/6474 from 3.6247/6276 previously.
— Bernama
