The ringgit is likely to remain weak in the near-term due to the large foreign holdings of fixed income instruments in Malaysia.

An expectation of the US increasing interest rates and the risk of a possible sovereign credit rating downgrade by Fitch Rating, could still come back to haunt the ringgit again

The ringgit is likely to remain weak in the near-term due to the large foreign holdings of fixed income instruments in Malaysia.

(May 11): Global holdings of Malaysian government bonds rose to a record in April, taking overseas ownership of the debt to 32 percent.

Foreign investors purchased a net 11 billion ringgit ($3 billion) from a month earlier, the biggest inflow since at least 2006 and bringing the holdings to 168 billion ringgit, according to central bank data. The figure includes both conventional and Islamic sovereign bonds. When corporate notes are taken into account, they bought a total of 2.9 billion ringgit for an overall 216.4 billion ringgit.
http://www.theedgemarkets.com/my/article/g...nds-rise-record

Malaysia is now a net importer of oil. We import more oil than we export. So dropping oil prices should have been good for our economy," said Datuk Dr Mohamed Ariff, an economics professor from International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (Incief).

The ringgit's plummeting value is something that is unexplained. I think the ringgit is being undervalued. The Thai baht is still performing stronger than the ringgit despite the political situation in the country," Dr Ariff said.

Ringgit depreciation unexplained, says expert

http://www.theedgemarkets.com/my/article/r...ned-says-expert

Ringgit depreciation unexplained, says expert

http://www.theedgemarkets.com/my/article/r...ned-says-expert

Should we throw the experts away and get new ones ? Kakaka ....

actually, if this fella is right, bnm would be the first people to know and been seeing it for some time.

the fact that bnm has never said anything about that, how big the amounts, who, when, what methods, increasing or decreasing quantum, legal or illicit leaves much to be desired.

even when int'l watchdogs report m'sia in top 5 every year in global illicit outflows, bnm/gomen keeps mum, basically say "all is good".

so, i guess bnm/gomen assume either we are all too dumb to understand or all very smart, can figure it out.

Probably.. from 3.70 drop until 3.57 now.. still can't explain People can't tell a drop from a rise

29 May 2015 01:00 PM   
Is it time for the government to peg the ringgit again?

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by Sonia Ramachandran
PETALING JAYA: Should the depreciating ringgit once again be pegged to the US dollar (USD)?

Considering its position as one of the worst performing currencies in Asia this year, there is speculation that it would be pegged.

- See more at: http://www.theantdaily.com/Main/Is-it-time...h.VnqFupap.dpuf

today noon, usd1=rm3.650/3.653.

light read, but i doubt a peg is in consideration:

Nope, they won't peg, now they are using this to send money out.

As in like when malaysia's currency drop, their overseas money will not be affected?

Malaysia’s inflation accelerates to 1.8% in April
By Chester Tay / theedgemarkets.com   | May 29, 2015 : 6:41 PM MYT  
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KUALA LUMPUR (May 29): Malaysia’s April consumer price index (CPI) grows twice as fast as at 1.8% in April compared with barely 0.9% in March, mainly due to the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST).

In a statement today, Bank Negara Malaysia said eleven out of twelve categories of consumer goods and services registered higher rate of inflation in April compared with March.

“These price increases were most evident in the food and non-alcoholic beverages, communication and miscellaneous goods and services categories,” the central bank stated.

The food and non-alcoholic beverages category represent the highest weightage of 30.3% among the twelve other categories in the CPI basket. The category’s inflation growth was 3.15% on-year in April, as compared with 2.27% in March, according Bank Negara today.

On the other hand, communication category’s inflation growth rate was 2.35% last month, in contrast to a retraction of 0.92% in March.

Meanwhile, miscellaneous goods and services category’s inflation topped at 4.08%, highest since January this year.
http://www.theedgemarkets.com/my/article/m...erates-18-april

KUALA LUMPUR: The rationalisation efforts of 1Malaysia Development Berhad’s (1MDB) assets is a restructuring exercise more than anything else, says second finance minister Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah who has insisted that said efforts are not meant to “save” the controversy-laden strategic development company or the government.
“In our context, the main thing is that we must solve the issue of debt so that the people do not have to worry,” he said in a live interview on national television channel TV1.
In the interview, Husni focused instead on the larger picture, saying that there was a need for the country to resolve the 1MDB debt issue to avoid sparking a negative chain of events.
He opined that Putrajaya’s being forced to take on the RM42 billion debt in addition to next year’s development expenditure of RM52 billion would cause it to fail to meet the targeted Budget 2015 deficit of 3.2 per cent and revert to over 4 per cent instead.
“What will happen? Our ratings will drop. When our ratings drop, our companies borrow from abroad, our currency value will drop like in 1998 then when our ringgit at one point was over RM4. How to pay debts?” was the rhetorical question.
The Malaysian currency dipped in value during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, at one point going over RM4 against the US dollar.
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/...-restructuring/

gst/inflation + 1mdb + potential fitch downgrade + potential bigger budget deficit = rm down...?

think fx markets today reacting to menteri speech and continued 1mdb saga. rm at 3.70 today to a relatively weaker $.

When is the official ann't date of the Actual 2015 Budget Deficit result ?

The rupiah is the worst-performing Asian currency so far this year, dented by corporate demand for the dollar as well as concerns over Indonesia's economic slowdown and its chronic current account deficit.
http://www.theedgemarkets.com/my/article/r...fx-broadly-down