Ringgit eases against US dollar

RINGGIT

THE ringgit eased against the US dollar at close yesterday on lack of commercial demand for the local note, dealers said.

At 5pm, the local currency edged down to 3.3970/4020 against the dollar from last Friday's closing of 3.3969/3996.

A dealer said after the rally last week, market players were taking a breather this week on anticipation of several important economic data, and also data from the US Federal Reserve due for release starting tomorrow.

"We expect that equities will continue to provide leads, though the broad dollar weakness should prevail as markets bet on riskier currencies and other assets on the back of the economic recovery theme," said UOB Economic Treasury Research in its note.

The US September retail sales data will be released tomorrow while Consumer Price Index, regional manufacturing activity and jobless claims will be released on Thursday.

Otherwise, the ringgit was mostly higher against other major currencies.

It appreciated against the Singapore dollar to 2.4252/4314 from 2.4372/4414 last Friday and rose against the Japanese yen to 3.7615/7683 from 3.8078/8112 previously.

Against the British pound, the ringgit strengthened to 5.3577/3673 from 5.4194/4244 last Friday but declined against the euro to 5.0024/0108 from 5.0013/0063 previously.

INTERBANK RATES

SHORT-term rates remained stable yesterday as Bank Negara Malaysia continued to intervene to offset the liquidity surplus in the financial system, dealers said.

At the end of the day, the liquidity surplus was reduced to RM14.6 billion in the conventional system and RM5.4 billion in Islamic funds.

Bank Negara earlier estimated a surplus of RM18.05 billion in conventional operations and RM9.13 billion in the Islamic system.

The central bank had earlier conducted a conventional tender, a Repo tender, four Al-Wadiah tenders as well as two Commodity Murabahah Programme tenders

Bank Negara also called for a late conventional tender for RM14.6 billion of one-day money and an Al-Wadiah tender for RM5.4 billion of one-day money.

The overnight rate was quoted at 1.92 per cent while the one-week, two-week and three-week rates were pegged at 1.95 per cent, 1.97 per cent and two per cent respectively.

KLIBOR

THE three-month Kuala Lumpur Inter-Bank Offered Rate (KLIBOR) futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives were mixed at close yesterday, a dealer said.

The futures market saw three outright transactions with September 2010 and June 2013 adding one tick each to 97.17 and 95.37 respectively while December 2010 declined five ticks to 96.90.

Total volume declined to 45 lots from the 1,120 lots last Friday while open interests surged to 33,190 contracts from 32,953 contracts previously.

At the 11am fixing yesterday, the underlying KLIBOR stood flat at 2.15 per cent.

As for the five-year Malaysian Government Securities, no trading was recorded throughout the day. - Bernama