At 9.04am, the local note rose to 4.3965/3995 versus the US dollar from yesterday’s closing rate of 4.4020/4065.

Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd chief economist Afzanizam Abdul Rashid said the US Dollar Index headed south to 101.564, falling by 0.52%.

He said according to the US Job Openings and Labour Turnover Survey’s monthly report, job openings declined to 9.93 million in February against the market expectation of 10.4 million, suggesting that the labour market is softening.

“This lent support that the US Federal Reserve might change their stand and perhaps would not make any changes in the Fed Fund Rate in the upcoming Federal Open Market Committee meeting in May.

“As such, we believe the dollar-ringgit (USD/MYR) would appreciate further to around RM4.39 to RM4.40 today,” he said.

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

It eased vis-a-vis the euro to 4.8194/8227 from 4.8118/8167 at yesterday’s close and depreciated against the Japanese yen to 3.3423/3449 compared with 3.3135/3171, but rose versus the British pound to 5.4925/4963 from 5.5078/5134 previously.

At the same time, the ringgit traded mixed against Asean currencies.

It inched up versus the Singapore dollar to 3.3176/3201 from 3.3198/3234 at yesterday’s close and increased slightly versus the Indonesian rupiah to 295.00/295.40 from 295.40/295.80.

However, the local note traded flat vis-a-vis the Philippine peso at 8.07/8.08 from 8.07/8.09 yesterday and weakened against the Thai baht to 12.9412/9561 from 12.8612/8800 previously.