kuala lumpur: In early trading on Monday, despite cautious sentiment after US President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on BRICS countries if they create currencies to rival the US dollar. The ringgit opened marginally higher against the US dollar.
As of 8:03am, the ringgit was trading at 4.4400/4500 ringgit against the US dollar, up from Friday’s closing price of 4.4425/4495 ringgit.
Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, expects the currencies of emerging countries such as Malaysia, which have trade surpluses with the United States, to weaken to some extent.
Major world powers China and Russia are part of the BRICS alliance, along with Brazil, India, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates.
“The same could happen with the BRICS tariff threat, given that markets saw President Trump’s tariff threat last week as a negotiating tool to extract more concessions from trading partners. As a result, markets remain in ‘wait-and-see’ mode, waiting to see whether these declarations escalate into a full-blown trade war or remain part of President Trump’s negotiating strategy,” Innes told Bernama. I told Mr.
Also read: Next week’s ringgit has an upside bias against the US dollar and is expected to trade at 4.42 to 4.44 ringgit
The ringgit traded marginally higher against a basket of major currencies.
Against the British pound it rose to 5.6366/6493 from Friday’s 5.6384/6473, against the euro it rose from 4.6899/6973 to 4.6780/6885, and against the Japanese yen it rose from 2.9589/9638 to 2.9578/9647.
Local banknotes also traded near higher prices against ASEAN currencies.
The Singapore dollar rose to 3.3078/3157 from Friday’s 3.3146/3200, while the Philippine peso rose to 7.57/7.60 from 7.58/7.59.
The exchange rate against the Thai baht also increased from 12.9459/9738 to 12.9126/9507, and against the Indonesian rupiah there was little change at 280.1/280.9 from the previous rate of 280.2/280.8.
