At 6pm, the local currency stood at 4.1340/1370 against the greenback, up 70 basis points from yesterday’s close of 4.1410/1460.
The dealer said the US dollar was under pressure against other world currencies, triggered by market players’ concerns over signs of an economic slowdown in the United States.
Another dealer, however, said the emerging market asset performance was expected to be very challenging, as risk aversion would intensify.
Moving forward, he said there would be continued demand for safe haven currencies such as the US dollar and Japanese yen.
“At this juncture, the US dollar has been depreciating at a very gradual pace. We expect the ringgit to be range bound in the near term,” he added.
Meanwhile, the ringgit was mostly lower against other major currencies.
The local unit depreciated against the British pound to 5.2378/2432 against Thursday’s 5.2090/2173 and weakened against the euro to 4.7144/7199 from 4.7104/7165 yesterday.
It also depreciated against the Singapore dollar to 3.0357/0395 from 3.0321/0369 but rose against the Japanese yen to 3.8260/8298 from 3.8457/8514 on Thursday.