KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 11 — The ringgit reversed yesterday’s losses to finish marginally higher against the US dollar, driven by firmer crude oil prices.

At 6pm, the local note settled at 4.1900/1950 against the greenback compared with 4.1930/1980 at yesterday’s close.

AxiCorp chief global market strategist Stephen Innes said the de-escalation in the US-China trade war risk, coupled with improving Covid-19 news flow, provided a positive tailwind for crude oil prices to move higher.

"As such, the ringgit improved from as low as 4.2065 to 4.1900 at the close,” he told Bernama.

At the time of writing, benchmark Brent crude oil rose 0.89 per cent to US$45.39 per barrel.

In a separate note, OANDA Asia-Pacific senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley said Asian currencies, including the ringgit, have been staging a very modest rally versus the US dollar today, boosted by a robust regional equity performance, and a quiet geopolitical front.

"The US dollar is around 0.10 to 0.20 per cent lower versus the Chinese yuan, Thai baht, Singapore dollar, the ringgit and Indonesian rupiah today,” he said, adding that the rally, though, appears a minor range-trading one, rather than the start of a new leg lower for the greenback.

However, the ringgit was traded mostly lower against a basket of major currencies, except versus the Japanese yen.

It fell against the British pound to 5.4864/4942 from 5.4752/4822 yesterday, weakened against the Singapore dollar to 3.0546/0591 from 3.0515/0558 and slipped against the euro to 4.9383/9459 from 4.9301/9377 previously.

Vis-a-vis the yen, the local note, however, strengthened to 3.9495/9553 from 3.9553/9608. — Bernama