KUALA LUMPUR, June 25 — The ringgit opened flat against the US dollar this morning on lack of fresh leads, with most traders remain on the sidelines due to mixed external developments.
At 9am, the ringgit was at 4.1380/1410 against the greenback from 4.1380/1420 at close yesterday.
A dealer said investors awaited anxiously whether US President Donald Trump and China President Xi Jinping who are expected to meet at the G20 summit in Japan this week would agree to some of “truce” to defuse the worsening trade war.
Market players he said, believed if Trump and Xi fail to make any headway on the sensitive trade talk, the US Federal Reserve could be forced to cut interest rates to prevent a wider economic slowdown resulting from higher tariffs imposed by both sides.
Meanwhile, AmBank Research said the Malaysian market was hurt by another negative headline when the US Treasury recently included Malaysia as one of the nine countries listed on its currency manipulator list.
The others were China, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam.
“However, the impact on bond yields and ringgit was rather temporary as the perception of Malaysia being a currency manipulator was unreasonable. Malaysia did not weaken its currency deliberately to support its exports in recent years,” it said in a research note.
At the opening, the ringgit was mostly lower against a basket of major currencies.
The local currency weakened against the Singapore dollar to 3.0579/0613 from 3.0555/0595 on Monday but slightly higher against the pound at 5.2726/2769 from 5.2797/2864.
The ringgit depreciated against the yen to 3.8558/8596 from 3.8547/8588 and eased against the euro to 4.7186/7224 from 4.7140/7202. — Bernama
