Against a basket of other major currencies, the ringgit traded mostly higher except to the yen, against which it fell to 3.7836/7876 from 3.7694/7722 last Friday. — Reuters pic
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 16 — The ringgit ended lower against the US dollar today as investors’ interest shifted towards the greenback after China and the United States announced more details of their "phase-one" bilateral trade agreement.
As at 6pm, the local note was traded at 4.1400/1440 to the dollar compared with 4.1335/1355 recorded last Friday.
Oanda senior market analyst for Asia Pacific, Jeffrey Halley, pointed out that the US has cancelled the next round of tariffs on Chinese imports that were due yesterday and reduced tariffs to 7.5 per cent from 15 per cent on another US$120 billion of goods, while China committed to purchases of US$200 billion of American goods over the next two years.
“This is a concrete progress at de-escalating the trade war that has dogged both countries, and indeed the world, for the previous two years,” he said in a note.
Meanwhile, against a basket of other major currencies, the ringgit traded mostly higher except to the yen, against which it fell to 3.7836/7876 from 3.7694/7722 last Friday.
The local unit rose versus the Singapore dollar to 3.0542/0583 from 3.0566/0586, appreciated against the British pound to 5.5194/5264 from 5.5443/5486 and strengthened vis-a-vis the euro to 4.6086/6148 from 4.6208/6247. — Bernama