KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 6): The ringgit opened marginally higher against the US dollar on Wednesday, supported by the positive sentiment following a high recovery rate from Covid-19 infections and a lower daily tally of new cases.
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At 9am, the local note had improved to 4.1780/1810 versus the greenback from Tuesday’s closing at 4.1785/1795.
On Tuesday, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the country recorded another 15,615 recoveries from Covid-19, almost double the number of new infections, which stood at 8,817 cases.
He said of the total new cases reported, 8,635 cases (97.9%) were in categories one or two, while the remaining 2.1% or 182 cases were in categories three, four or five.
Meanwhile, an analyst told Bernama that gains in the ringgit were capped by the reaction to the US’ better ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data, where it improved to 61.9 in September from 61.7 in August.
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A higher-than-expected reading could be taken as potentially positive for the US dollar as the ISM measures the health of the economy from a business perspective.
At the opening, the ringgit was traded mixed against a basket of major currencies.
It appreciated versus the Japanese yen to 3.7431/7461 from 3.7587/7596 at Tuesday’s close and rose against the Singapore dollar to 3.0782/0806 compared with 3.0801/0813 the day before.
Conversely, the local currency eased vis-a-vis the euro to 4.8448/8483 from 4.8475/8486 on Tuesday and dropped to 5.6934/6974 versus the British pound from 5.6620/6933 previously.-BERNAMA