Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 19): The ringgit depreciated to its weakest level against a strengthening U.S. dollar today at 4.4528, after US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen hinted the central bank may continue to raise interest rates.

Yesterday, Yellen said it "makes sense" for the Federal Reserve to gradually raise interest rates, as the U.S.' employment and inflation numbers were near the Federal Reserve's target, Bloomberg and Reuters reported.

In Malaysia today, the ringgit depreciated to 4.4515 against the U.S. dollar at 11:49am. The US Dollar Index that tracks the U.S. dollar against a basket of currencies rose to 101.23 at 11:55am.

Yellen had commented on the U.S.' interest rate policy, ahead of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration tomorrow (Jan 20).

Yesterday, world markets took the cue from Trump's U.S. dollar comment. Reuters reported the dollar's recent weakness deepened, after Trump said the greenback's strength against the Chinese yuan "is killing us".

In Malaysia today, an economist with a local bank told theedgemarkets.com that Asian currency markets would be 'quite noisy' for the weeks to come.

“With Trump’s inauguration tomorrow, we are seeing a lot of noise in the market and the ringgit is affected. We expect more downward pressure in the ringgit and emerging market currencies for the first half of 2017,” he said.

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