RINGGIT

THE ringgit closed lower against the US dollar yesterday as riskier assets were sold off after German officials dampened European Union (EU) rescue plan hopes, dealers said.

At the close, the ringgit depreciated to 3.1320/1370 against the greenback from 3.0980/1030 on Monday.

Investors were dismayed by the German Finance Minister’s forecast that an EU summit this weekend would not present a definitive solution to the region’s debt crisis.

Against other major currencies, the ringgit was traded mixed. It rose against the Singapore dollar to 2.4565/ 4619 from Monday’s 2.4599/4635 but declined against the yen to 4.0744/ 0836 from 4.0047/0078 previously.

The ringgit depreciated against the British pound to 4.9238/9326 from Monday’s 4.8971/9012 but gained against the euro to 4.2852/2933 from 4.3050/3090 on Monday.

INTERBANK RATES

SHORT-TERM rates closed steady yesterday as Bank Negara Malaysia continued to absorb excess liquidity from the money market.

The overnight rate was fixed at 2.98 per cent while the one-week, two-week and three-week rates stood at 3.02, 3.05 and 3.07 per cent respectively.

The liquidity surplus in the conventional operations was reduced to RM19.09 billion from an earlier estimate of RM24.74 billion while in the Islamic system, it was reduced to RM2.21 billion from RM4.48 billion.

The central bank had earlier issued four conventional tenders, a repo and three Al-Wadiah tenders. It also issued two late tenders comprising RM18.2 billion in the conventional system and a RM2.2 billion Al-Wadiah tender, both for one day.

KLIBOR

THE three-month Kuala Lumpur Interbank Offered Rate (KLIBOR) futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives closed unchanged yesterday.

Both March 2012 and June 2012 stood at 96.87. Total volume jumped to 1,220 lots from Monday’s 50 lots while open interest narrowed to 18,179 contracts from 18,229 contracts previously.

The underlying three-month KLIBOR was fixed at 3.26 per cent.
The five-year Malaysian Government Securities futures were untraded. — Bernama