Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd chief economist Afzanizam Rashid said the ringgit was well supported today after the US Dollar Index declined following weak labour market data in the US.

Yesterday’s release of the Jobs Opening and Labour Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed that the US job openings declined more than expected to 7.673 million in July, compared with 7.91 million in June.

“It has become prevalent with the job opening falling more than expected in July, suggesting that the Federal Reserve (Fed) may need to be decisive to ease its monetary policy to achieve the so-called soft landing,” Afzanizam told Bernama.

On the home front, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM)’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has decided to maintain the overnight policy rate (OPR) at 3% at its meeting earlier today.

Afzanizam said the OPR is deemed to be supportive of growth.

Therefore, he said BNM may keep the OPR steady at 3% for the rest of 2024.

“This should be positive for the ringgit as the gap between the Fed Fund Rate (FFR) and OPR would be narrowed in the near-term,” he added.

At 6pm, the local currency rose to 4.3360/4.3400 versus the greenback from yesterday’s close of 4.3505/4.3560.

Meanwhile, the ringgit traded mostly lower against a basket of major currencies.

The local currency was higher against the British pound at 5.7049/5.7101 from 5.7052/5.7125 at yesterday’s close but moved lower vis-a-vis the euro to 4.8099/4.8144 from 4.8082/4.8143.

It went down versus the Japanese yen to 3.0189/3.0219 from 2.9981/3.0021 yesterday.

The ringgit was also traded lower against Asean currencies.

The local currency declined against the Singapore dollar to 3.3303/3.3336 from 3.3299/3.3344 yesterday and depreciated versus the Indonesian rupiah to 281.5/281.9 from 281.0/281.5.

It slipped against the Philippine peso to 7.71/7.72 from 7.69/7.70 and weakened vis-a-vis the Thai baht to 12.8772/12.8940 from 12.7096/12.7294 previously.