KUALA LUMPUR: The ringgit opened slightly lower against the US dollar ahead of the release of February’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) print.
Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd chief economist Afzanizam Rashid said that consensus estimates Malaysia’s inflation rate to be sustained at 1.5% in February.
Last week, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) revised its inflation rate forecast to 2.0-3.5% for 2024, from the previous forecast of 2.1-3.6%.
Despite the revision, Mohd Afzanizam said inflation remained high, giving more reasons for the Overnight Policy Rate to stay unchanged at 3%.
He said that based on the Fibonacci retracement, the ringgit’s prevailing support and resistance levels stand at RM4.7341 and RM4.47481, respectively.
At 9.05am, the ringgit eased to 4.7390/4.7430 against the greenback from Friday’s close of 4.7340/4.7390.
Meanwhile, the ringgit was traded mostly lower against a basket of major currencies.
It appreciated against the euro to 5.1195/5.1239 from 5.1203/5.1257 at Friday’s close but slipped against the British pound to 5.9692/5.9743 from 5.9582/5.9645 last week, and depreciated vis-a-vis the Japanese yen to 3.1332/3.1361 from 3.1223/3.1258.
The ringgit was also traded easier against other Asean currencies, except versus the Philippines’ peso, where it rose to 8.40/8.41 from 8.41/8.42 last Friday.
It slipped versus the Thai baht to 13.0336/13.0503 compared with 13.0116/13.0318, went down vis-a-vis the Indonesian rupiah to 300.2/300.6 from 299.8/300.4 and eased against the Singapore dollar to 3.5109/3.5141 from 3.5106/3.5145 previously. - FMT
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.