Opening the market this morning, the Malaysian Ringgit (RM) continued to strengthen against the US dollar despite many investors ignoring it during the long holiday season.
At exactly 10am this morning, the ringgit was at RM4.6080, stronger than it closed last Friday at RM4.6265.
According to SPI's Director of Asset Management, Stephen Innes said that the ringgit is poised to perform better given the relatively slow movement of inflation in the United States and the possibility of policy easing by the central bank next year.
Although today's trading session was relatively quiet, he expects the ringgit to show insignificant strengthening movements unless an unexpected catalyst appears beyond the momentum during the US interest rate cut.
He also said that investors also got good news in the form of a more modest inflation report by the Federal Reserve (The Fed) at the end of last week. However, the market expects a cut of 160 basis points and a relatively weak foreign exchange market situation.
Looking at currency comparisons, the ringgit is also seen to have increased against the British pound, the euro and the Japanese yen. It rose against the British pound at 5.8609, the euro at 5.0852 and the Japanese yen at 3.2435.
In addition, the ringgit also strengthened compared to other Asean currencies. The local currency rose against the Singapore dollar to 3.4840, the Indonesian rupiah to 297.9, the Thai baht to 13.3102 and the Philippine peso to 8.33.
