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Exchange Rates for RM

enjoylife77

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Clearly RM$ is on a long term bear trend and we shall see another round of price increase soon from restaurants dining to shopping to foot reflexology.
 

snowbird

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Clearly RM$ is on a long term bear trend and we shall see another round of price increase soon from restaurants dining to shopping to foot reflexology.

One reasonably big Korean style BBQ chicken restaurant in Bukit Indah had just closed due to poor business after opening and struggled for 3 years.
With so many huge malls coming, perhaps 30 times more the same same restaurants, eateries, beauty and hair salons, massage parlors, supermarkets, department store, clothing and shoe stores will be needed to fill the malls.
Possible?
Can the shops survive?
Actually, many FT massage mei meis are saying that they are not coming back to work in MY due to the poor exchange rate.
So with lesser mei meis to choose from, higher pricing, lower patronage, many businesses will be shuttered.
A vicious cycle in the making.
 

enjoylife77

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If the RM$ slides continue, I won't be surprised that traders, businessmen and salaried staff will start to demand payment in other stable currency.
 

enjoylife77

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Singapore dollar hits all-time high against Malaysian ringgit.

SINGAPORE: The Singapore dollar hovered at an all-time high against the Malaysian ringgit on Friday (Feb 24), peaking at 3.1687 earlier in the day before easing back to 3.1643 in afternoon trade.

An outperformance of the Singapore currency, rather than a weakening in the ringgit, was behind the movements in the SGD/MYR, analysts told Channel NewsAsia.

Alongside broad-based strength in other Asian currencies such as the South Korean won and the Taiwan dollar, the Sing dollar edged up as overnight comments from US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pulled down the US dollar.

Speaking to CNBC in his first televised interview since taking office, Mnuchin said he wanted to see tax reform passed before Congress' August recess, but later acknowledged on Fox Business Network that such a timeline was "very aggressive”. US President Donald Trump previously said he would announce a "phenomenal" plan by early March to cut business taxes.

“Overnight comments from Mnuchin seem to suggest that the tax reforms will only be read in August. If that’s the case, dollar strength will only come later,” said Mr Christopher Wong, senior FX strategist for Maybank.

“Even on Trump’s point of declaring China as a currency manipulator, Mnuchin said there’s no plan to do that so there seems to be a contradiction in there,” Mr Wong added. “This sets the stage for Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress on Feb 28, which markets will be keeping an eye on for more details of his tax reform and infrastructure plans.”

Little clarity on the US president’s proposed fiscal stimulus has reined in the US dollar's rally since the start of the year, allowing Asian currencies to take a slight breather.

On Friday, even a below-par industrial production report failed to dampen the spirits of the Sing dollar, which was last seen at 1.4050 per US dollar in afternoon trade. Earlier in the day, the local dollar hit 1.4091 against the greenback, its highest since Nov 10.

“The outperformance of the Sing dollar occurred way before the data release but even that had little impact. Simply because the big swing this month in industrial production was due to the biomedical manufacturing, which is typically quite volatile,” Mr Wong said.

Amid expectations of further bouts of US dollar weakness, analysts expect the Sing dollar to continue outperforming.

“The narrative surrounding Trump and his agenda is fraying and that’s causing these movements. With a little bit of recovery in risk sentiment given the push back in moves that could inflate trade tensions, we see low-yielding currencies like the Sing dollar doing better,” said Mr Julian Wee, senior markets strategist for Asia at National Australia Bank.

On the other hand, the Malaysian ringgit will likely continue to underperform most of its Asian counterparts.

One reason for that is Bank Negara Malaysia’s lack of adequate foreign exchange reserves to “smooth out the depreciation” of the currency amid a strong dollar environment, Mr Wee noted.

- CNA/sk
 
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FHBH12

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The future of the Malaysian ringgit

By: Kang Wan Chern
06/03/17, 04:22 pm

SINGAPORE (March 6): Last May, a 128-gigabyte Apple iPhone 6s Plus in Malaysia cost RM3,699. At the exchange rate of SGD1:RM2.85 then, that would have been around $1,298 –about the same as the retail price in Singapore.

At today’s exchange rate of RM3.16 though, Singaporeans can get the same phone for $1,170 in Malaysia. With the phone selling in Singapore for $1,218, they could save around $50.

It’s not such a good deal for Malaysians coming to Singapore though.

That $298 Guns N Roses ticket you bought in Jan for RM894 would have been RM849 in May last year, when the exchange rate was at its lowest point for the year. If it had been 4 years ago, when the ringgit was at its strongest in 2013 at RM2.40, the tickets would have cost around RM715.

It’s no secret that the ringgit has weakened a lot in the past year. What happened was a rise in bond yields across the developed world when Donald Trump won the election in Nov with promises to “Make America Great Again.”

That raised expectations of a stronger US economy, which drew foreign money out of short-term Malaysian bonds towards higher-yielding investments elsewhere.

Around 40% of Malaysia’s short term bonds are held by foreigners. The sudden exodus of funds – which hit its highest level since 2008 last Nov and Dec at a total of RM25.2 billion – caused the ringgit to fall.

Then, in December, the Federal Reserve hiked the interest rate after keeping it on hold for a year, causing the USD to strengthen against other currencies.

But the reason the ringgit has stayed weak when other currencies like the SGD had strengthened recently, is Bank Negara Malaysia’s curbs on offshore speculation. To stop the ringgit from further volatility, the central bank put a stop to trading the currency in the non-deliverable forwards (NDF) market last Nov.

The NDF market is the offshore marketplace for foreign companies and investors with local dealings to trade or hedge their exposure to the ringgit because domestic restrictions make it difficult for them to do so in Malaysia.

Since then, foreign investors have cut their NDF involvement in the ringgit and the currency’s volatility is reported to have fallen to its lowest since 2013.

However, the ringgit is now consistently trading at its weakest level against the USD and SGD since the Asian Financial Crisis, even though oil prices have risen and BNM has not cut the Overnight Policy Rate of 3%.

On one hand, the NDF curbs matter because when central banks intervene in the markets, foreign investors lose confidence in doing business. This is especially since Malaysia has a history of implementing more draconian measures like restricting capital from leaving the country during the AFC. The result is a persistently weak but stable currency.

If BNM removes the curbs, the ringgit could spike at first, but the risks will also return. This would lead to a more volatile currency which would fluctuate with oil prices and every other new development in global monetary policy. That means the ringgit can actually go even lower from here without the restrictions, since the long-term view is for US rates to rise.

Also, the weak currency has done some businesses good since exports grew by 13.7% in January even though imports of consumer goods are down. The economy is also forecast to grow at 4%-5% this year compared to China's forecast growth of 6.5%. The Singapore and US economies are growing at around 2%.

In any case, analysts don't think BNM will lift the NDF curbs soon. The latest forecast by Credit Suisse is for the ringgit to fall to 4.55 against the USD in 12 months' time.

The good news is that in the months ahead the ringgit might strengthen against the SGD, which is more sensitive to movements in the USD. Also, Singapore's economy isn't doing as well as before and unemployment is becoming a problem.

As such, analysts are expecting the Monetary of Authority of Singapore to keep the SGD from appreciating to give exports a better chance of growing this year.

http://www.theedgemarkets.com.sg/ar...ail&utm_term=0_46b7beec93-2b81e9b1c3-90561809
 

snowbird

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Despite OPEC production​ cut, crude suddenly crashed below US$50 last week and many expect it might touch US$45 in no time.
Trump's "Make America Great Again" is not helping the price recovery because he'll be encouraging more shale oil drilling in the US in order to provide more jobs at home.
Any further fall in crude price, expect the RM to be greatly affected, so watch the crude price closely to monitor the RM!
 
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RedsYNWA

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Despite OPEC production​ cut, crude suddenly crashed below US$50 last week and many expect it might touch US$45 in no time.
Trump's "Make America Great Again" is not helping the price recovery because he'll be encouraging more shale oil drilling in the US in order to provide more jobs at home.
Any further fall in crude price, expect the RM to be greatly affected, so watch the crude price closely to monitor the RM!

Great news! Hope RM can hit 3.3 soon. Thanks for sharing!
 

Investor888

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Huat ah! Hopefully I can earn more and more Sing dollars to change into ringgit to pay for my holiday homes in JB. At least we have a chance to see S$1 = RM 3.15. When my kids grow up I guess it might be S$1 = RM 0.333 judging from how screwed up Singapore economy is degenerating.
 

snowbird

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Short-term money goes out of Malaysia

Foreigners have sold RM21.71bil (S$6.91 billion) worth of government bonds in the last three months, reducing their share of holding in the debt papers to 28.7 per cent as of end February from a peak of 34.7 per cent last year.

So, the foreigners have not stop taking their money out of the Malaysian market.
Again, Trump's "Make America Great Again" is helping the funds exodus as investors will be flocking back to the US.
If trend continues with more foreign funds leaving MY, the RM will be very much affected.

http://news.asiaone.com/news/business/short-term-money-goes-out-malaysia#sthash.cU8uwmyD.dpuf
 
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