At 9.01am, the local note stood at 4.3920/3960 versus the greenback from Wednesday’s close of 4.3930/3960.

SPI Asset Management managing partner Stephen Innes said during the FOMC meeting on May 3-4, the US Federal Reserve (Fed) officials agreed that interest rates needed to be raised by 50 basis points in the next two sessions in June and July to combat inflation.

He said this should contain any local weakness from the Fed side, especially with global equities rebounding.

“The regional focus remains on China and its plans to reopen its economy, as well as future policy easing that might benefit regional foreign exchange, especially the ringgit,” he noted.

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

The local note had depreciated against the Singapore dollar to 3.1977/2008 from Wednesday’s close of 3.1947/1971, slid versus the British pound to 5.5366/5416 from 5.4908/4946 yesterday and decreased versus the euro to 4.7008/7050 from 4.6895/6927 previously.

However, the ringgit rose vis-a-vis the Japanese yen to 3.4452/4487 from 3.4563/4590 yesterday.