By Rosemarie Khoo Mohd Sani
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 6 (NNN-Bernama) — The Malaysian ringgit opened marginally higher against the US dollar today, supported by the positive sentiment following the high recovery rate from COVID-19 infections and lower daily tally of new cases.
At 9 am, the local note improved to 4.1780/1810 versus the greenback from Tuesday’s closing of 4.1785/1795.
Yesterday, Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the country recorded 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 per cent) were in categories one and two, while the remaining 2.1 per cent or 182 cases were in categories three to five.
Meanwhile, an analyst told Bernama that the gains in the ringgit were capped by the reaction to the United States’ better ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) data, where it had improved to 61.9 in September from 61.7 in August.
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 yesterday.
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.
— NNN-BERNAMA
