Ringgit's appreciation against dollar continues

RINGGIT

THE ringgit strengthened further against the US dollar at close yesterday, taking advantage of the continuing weakening of the greenback globally, dealers said.

At the close, the local currency appreciated against the US dollar to 3.3590/3620 from Wednesday's closing of 3.3715/3745.

The ringgit achieved a new 14-month high of 3.343 to the US dollar at noon, a level which was last seen in August 2008.

One of the dealers said the US dollar continued to be under selling pressure due to heavy selling as investors reduced their holdings of the weakening currency.

At close of yesterday trading session, the ringgit ended mixed against other major currencies.

The local currency rose against the Singapore dollar to 2.4186/4243 from yesterday's close of 2.4207/4251 and also against the Japanese yen to 3.7464/7501 from 3.7810/7856 previously.

The ringgit weakened against the British pound to 5.4402/4461 from 5.3917/3979 yesterday but it strengthened against the euro to 5.0190/0252 from 5.0225/0280 previously.

INTERBANK RATES

SHORT-TERM rates remained stable yesterday as Bank Negara Malaysia continued to intervene in the market to mop up excess liquidity, dealers said.

At the close, the liquidity surplus was reduced to RM12.34 billion in the conventional system and RM5.11 billion in Islamic funds.

Bank Negara had earlier estimated a surplus of RM14.99 billion in conventional operations and RM8.32 billion in the Islamic system.

It had earlier conducted a conventional, a repo, four Al-Wadiah as well as a Commodity Murabahah Programme tenders.

Bank Negara also called for a late conventional tender for RM12.3 billion of one-day money and an Al-Wadiah tender for RM5.1 billion of one-day money.

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

KLIBOR

THE three-month Kuala Lumpur Inter-Bank Offered Rate (KLIBOR) futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives were mostly lower at close yesterday with four outright transactions, a dealer said. The futures market saw March 2010 unchanged at 97.63, June 2010 down one tick to 97.36, Sept 2010 easier by 10 ticks to 97.10. March 2011 was also down by five ticks to 96.65.

Total volume surged to 239 lots from 30 lots on Wednesday while open interests added to 33,220 contracts from 33,210 contracts previously. At the 11am fixing yesterday, the underlying three-month KLIBOR remained flat at 2.15 per cent.

As for the five-year Malaysian Government Securities, no trading has been recorded since Monday. - Bernama