Ringgit slightly lower against greenback

THE ringgit closed slightly lower against the US dollar yesterday, dealers said.

They said the market was nervous on talks that Indonesia's central bank may restrict foreign ownership of short-term debts.

However, one of the dealers said the rupiah later regained its strength as fear of immediate capital curbs eased.

On the local front, the ringgit was traded within a range of between 3.3620 and 3.3770 to the US dollar throughout the day.

The scheduled listing of Maxis' initial public offering today provided support for the local currency, according to the dealers.

At 5.02pm, the ringgit was traded lower at 3.3650/3700 against the US dollar compared with the previous day's close of 3.3630/3680.

The local unit ended the day mixed against other major currencies.

It declined against the Singapore dollar to 2.4289/4351 from 2.4276/4339 the previous day but strengthened against the Japanese yen to 3.7741/7823 from 3.7838/7898 earlier.

Against the British pound, the ringgit rose to 5.6603/6694 from 5.6663/6754 the previous day and it was also higher against the euro at 5.0219/0304 compared to 5.0236/0325 earlier.


INTERBANK RATES

SHORT-TERM rates were stable at close yesterday on continued intervention by Bank Negara Malaysia to mop up excess liquidity in the inter-bank system, dealers said.

The overnight rate was at 1.92 per cent while the one-week, two-week and three-week rates were at 1.96 per cent, 1.98 per cent and 2.01 per cent respectively.

At close, liquidity surplus in the conventional system was reduced to RM18.616 billion from RM22.158 billion estimated earlier while for Islamic funds, it was reduced to RM5.853 billion from an earlier estimate of RM12.811 billion.

Bank Negara conducted seven tenders, comprising three conventional, two Al-Wadiah and one repo tenders as well as a commodity murabahah programme tender in the morning.

The central bank also called a late conventional tender for RM18.6 billion of one-day money and an Al-Wadiah tender for RM5.8 billion of one-day money.

The underlying Kuala Lumpur Inter-Bank Offered Rate was unchanged at 2.17 per cent.


KLIBOR

THE three-month Kuala Lumpur Interbank Offered Rate (KLIBOR) futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives closed lower yesterday with four contract months traded.

The futures market saw March 2010 down by two ticks to 97.75 while June 2011 lost three ticks to 96.72 and June 2013 fell by two ticks to 95.27. December 2013 stood unchanged at 94.94.

Volume stood at 41 lots with open interests at 32,932 contracts.

On the cash market, the underlying three-month KLIBOR was unchanged at 2.17 per cent.

The KLIBOR futures were untraded the previous day.

Meanwhile, the five-year Malaysian Government Securities (MGS) futures were untraded throughout the day. - BERNAMA


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