Ringgit finishers one-year high

RINGGIT

THE ringgit closed at a one-year high against the US dollar yesterday, supported by active foreign buying in the local currency, dealers said.

At 5pm, the local currency touched 3.4350/4370 against the US dollar compared with Monday's close of 3.4600/4630.

The dealers said the local unit hit a one-year high at 3.43 in the afternoon session but then pulled back as an earlier report in a British newspaper on Saudi Arabia being in secret talks with several countries to replace the US dollar for oil trading was denied by a Saudi official.

"The ringgit climbed to a one-year high on aggressive buying of the ringgit amid a weaker US dollar in the global market," said one of the dealers.

At closing, the ringgit ended mixed against other major currencies.

The local currency appreciated against the Singapore dollar to 2.4469/4518 from 2.4497/4561 on Monday but it declined against the Japanese yen to 3.8578/8605 from 3.8503/8564 previously.

Against the British pound, the ringgit rose to 5.4809/4861 from 5.5300/5385 on Monday but it weakened against the euro at 5.0587/0630 from 5.0583/0651 previously.

INTERBANK RATES

SHORT-TERM rates remained steady at close yesterday as Bank Negara Malaysia continued to intervene to offset the liquidity surplus in the financial system, a dealer said.

As a result, the liquidity surplus was reduced to RM21.52 billion in the conventional system and RM7.80 billion in Islamic funds.

Bank Negara this morning had estimated a surplus of RM32.17 billion in conventional operations and RM12.31 billion in the Islamic system.

To reduce the surplus, it issued conventional, Al-Wadiah, repo and commodity murabaha programme tenders.

The central bank also carried out a late conventional tender for RM21.52 billion of one-day money and an Al-Wadiah tender for RM7.8 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 at 1.95, 1.97 and 1.99 per cent respectively.

KLIBOR

THE three-month Kuala Lumpur Interbank Offered Rate (KLIBOR) futures contract closed lower yesterday, dealers said.

At the close, contract month December 2010 and December 2013 declined three ticks each to settle at 96.98 and 95.09, respectively.

Turnover stood at 40 lots while open interest amounted to 32,923 contracts.

The five-year Malaysian Government Securities futures, however, remained untraded.

The underlying three-month KLIBOR was pegged at 2.15 per cent. - Bernama