RINGGIT
THE ringgit closed easier against the US dollar yesterday as the local currency succumbed to profit-taking following its gains during intra-day trading, dealers said.
At 5pm, the local unit depreciated against the US dollar to 3.3755/3790 from 3.3650/3700 on Wednesday.
The ringgit traded between 3.38 and 3.95 to the US dollar during yesterday's session, the dealers said.
The local currency traded mainly lower against other major currencies at close yesterday.
It weakened against the Singapore dollar to 2.4217/4264 from 2.4176/4246 on Wednesday but strenghened against the Japanese yen at 3.7171/7230 from 3.7244/7316 previously.
Against the euro, the ringgit went down to 5.047/0519 from 5.0340/0419 on Wednesday and it also declined against the British pound to 5.5908/5987 from 5.5159/5248 previously.
INTERBANK RATES
SHORT-TERM rates closed steady yesterday with Bank Negara Malaysia intervening in the money market to absorb surplus funds, dealers said. The overnight rate was quoted at 1.92 per cent, one-week at 1.96 per cent, two-weeks at 1.98 per cent and three-week at 2.01 per cent.
The total liquidity surplus in the conventional system declined to RM14.21 billion from an earlier estimate of RM22.14 billion. For Islamic funds, the total liquidity surplus was reduced to RM5.52 billion from an earlier estimate of RM6.89 billion. Bank Negara conducted eight tenders - three conventional, three Al-Wadiah and a repo, and a commodity murabahah programme in the morning.
The central bank also issued a late conventional tender for RM14.2 billion for one-day and an Al-Wadiah tender for RM5.5 billion also for one-day.
KLIBOR
THE three-month Kuala Lumpur Interbank Offered Rate (KLIBOR) futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives closed unchanged yesterday.
Only March 2000 was traded with turnover of 28 lots. It ended unchanged at 97.62.
On the cash market, the underlying three-month KLIBOR was unchanged at 2.15 per cent.
The five-year Malaysian Government Securities futures were untraded throughout the day. - Bernama