kuala lumpur: According to economists, the ringgit is expected to maintain a range of 4.69 ringgit against the US dollar next week, from the current 4.68 ringgit.
Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid, chief economist and head of social finance at Bank Muamarat Malaysia, said the market would continue to evaluate the data points released next week.
He said concerns about the highly restrictive US monetary policy stance will also continue to weigh on market sentiment.
“Market participants continued to focus on the prospect of rising US interest rates.
“Next week, investors will wait for other important data points, including US non-farm payrolls (NFP) and the September unemployment rate,” he told Bernama.
Based on consensus estimates, NFP is expected to decline from 187,000 in August to 150,000 in September.
Meanwhile, SPI Asset Management managing director Stephen Innes said the ringgit would depend on whether the global growth balance is achieved through a slowdown in the US economy or through improvements in the rest of the world. He said the currency could start to rise towards 4.60 ringgit against the US dollar.
“The impending government shutdown poses some risk to market sentiment, but I think investors are pricing in the impact as long as the shutdown does not extend beyond the expected one to two weeks,” he said. Stated.
Congress is expected to agree on a spending bill by the end of September, but failure to do so could lead to a government shutdown.
From Friday to Friday, the ringgit fell to 4.6930/6970 ringgit against the US dollar, from 4.6865/6920 ringgit the previous week.
Meanwhile, the local currency traded mixed against other major currencies.
Against the euro, it rose from 4.9860/9918 to 4.9802/9845, and against the Japanese yen, it rose from 3.1593/1632 to 3.1482/1511. Against the British pound, it fell to 5.7522/7571 pounds from 5.7372/7439 pounds last Friday.
The ringgit also traded mixedly with ASEAN countries.
The local currency strengthened against the Thai baht to 12.8808/8964 from 13.0119/0322 last Friday, and improved against the Indonesian rupiah to 303.5/303.9 from 304.7/305.3.
Meanwhile, the Singapore dollar fell to 3.4457/4489 from 3.4313/4359 in the previous week, and the Philippine peso fell to 8.29/8.30 from 8.25/8.26. – Bernama
