Ringgit takes a breather with mild rebound

The ringgit, on a downtrend of late, took a breather today with a mild rebound against the US dollar in the early session, dealers said.

At 9.30 am, the Ringgit was quoted at 3.9900/9970 against the greenback from 4.0375/0415 at 5 pm yesterday.

A dealer said the Ringgit's slight improvement was on expectations of a better second quarter gross domestic product (GDP) data for the country to be announced later today.

Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia in a note today said it expects the second quarter growth to have slowed, but still remaining resilient.

"Manufacturing and mining production are likely to be stronger in the quarter due to positive external demand," it added.

The bank also expects GDP growth for the third and fourth quarters to rebound modestly.

Meanwhile, the dealer said the local unit remained vulnerable amid concerns over falling commodity prices in general and the possible fallout from China's move to devalue its currency.

"We foresee the Ringgit sustaining the rebound today after a continuous decline of almost two weeks. External factors will continue to play a major role in determining the direction of Asian currencies, including the Ringgit," he added.

The Ringgit traded higher against a basket of major currencies.

It rose marginally against the Singapore dollar to 2.8524/8595 from 2.8619/8659 on Wednesday and was higher against the yen at 3.2097/2159 from 3.2388/2431.

The ringgit strengthened against the pound sterling at 6.2320/2445 from 6.2876/2950 and edged up against the euro to 4.4512/4603 from 4.4941/4998 previously.