At 9.02am, the local note stood at 4.3815/3855 versus the greenback compared with Wednesday’s close of 4.3755/3785.

Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd chief economist Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid expects the ringgit to remain sideways as US inflation data remains elevated, with the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) print coming in at 8.3% for April 2022 against 8.1% consensus.

“This would imply that the US Federal Reserve (Fed) will be hawkish and likely to be aggressive in their monetary tightening measures,” he said.

Consequently, the US Dollar Index (DXY) has gone up further to 103.981 points, he noted.

After its third Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the year, Bank Negara Malaysia raised the overnight policy rate (OPR) by 25 basis points to 2.00% on Wednesday.

The central bank said the sustained reopening of the global economy and improvements in labour market conditions have continued to promote economic activity recovery.

Meanwhile, the ringgit was traded mostly higher against a basket of major currencies.

The local note appreciated slightly against the Singapore dollar to 3.1526/1559 from Wednesday’s close of 3.1583/1607, increased marginally against the euro to 4.6102/6144 from 4.6218/6250, and rose vis-a-vis the British pound to 5.3638/3687 from 5.4147/4184.

However, the Japanese yen decreased slightly to 3.3758/3792 from 3.3723/3748 yesterday.