Ringgit pares early gains

KUALA LUMPUR: The ringgit, which rebounded from five consecutive days of losses to open higher against the US dollar Tuesday morning, pared down its gains.

The local currency was quoted at 4.4420 to a dollar at 1pm. It was quoted at 4.4102 against the greenback at 10am.

MIDF said it is revising its ringgit 2016 year-end forecast to RM4.35 against the greenback from RM4.10.

“We forecast Ringgit to remain under pressure, trading range bound of between RM4.35 to a dollar - RM4.45 per US dollar throughout year-end.

“In 2017, we expect ringgit to gain especially in the first half 2017 on the presumption that commodity prices to stabilise at higher prices and the US economics growth to continue to underperform, recording below 2% year-on-year growth,” MIDF said in a report on Monday.

Tracking a higher overnight Wall Street, local bourse benchmark FBM KLCI ended the morning session in a positive territory.

At 12.30 pm, the benchmark KLCI rose 3.58 points to 1,630.86. The index opened 0.87 point higher at 1,628.15 in the morning.

Losers thumped gainers 332 to 298, while 311 counters were unchanged. Turnover stood at 758.78 million shares worth RM617.53mil.

Overnight, all three major U.S. stock indexes set record closing highs on Monday, extending their post-election rally as energy and other commodity-related shares gained and Facebook led a jump in technology.

Similarly, European stocks climbed as oil prices hit a three-week high
 
JF Apex said following the optimism in the US and Europe led by oil prices, the market could trend positively and climb towards its resistance of 1,645 points.

Hong Leong Investment Bank said KLCI’s near term outlook remained choppy as investors would continue to grapple with the short and long term implications of a Trump presidency and ringgit volatility.

“That said, the market should gradually recover towards the year end, buoyed by Bank Negara’s measures to stem forex market volatility and expectations of year-end window dressing activities,” it added.