The ringgit continued its decline in early trade today, breaching the 4.24 level to the dollar for the first time since the Asian financial crisis 17 years ago.
After opening at the 4.17 level, the ringgit was quoted 1.69 percent lower at 4.2430/2520 at 9.30am against the greenback, from 4.1800/1880 at 5pm last Friday.
Traders said foreign banks continued to offload the local note, which is currently under pressure from a lack of domestic leads, falling crude oil prices and sustained worries about China's economy has dented global risk appetite.
The ringgit also continued its decline against the Singapore dollar to 2.9990/0060 from 2.9694/9753 on Friday and eased against the yen to 3.4930/5007 from 3.3981/4060.
The local unit depreciated further against the pound sterling to 6.6479/6646 from 6.5672/5814 and weakened against the euro to 4.8497/8617 from Friday's 4.7033/7132.
Bursa dropped 27 points
Meanwhile, share prices on Bursa Malaysia opened sharply lower in early trade this morning and in tracking its regional peers, as concerns over China's slowing growth continued to dominate investors sentiment, dealers said.
At 9.10am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,546.97, down 27.70 points, after opening 21.42 points lower at 1,553.25.
Losers outpaced gainers 447 to 42, while 90 counters remained unchanged, 1,222 untraded and 10 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 217.96 million shares worth RM89.16 million.
A dealer said China's plan to move its main state pension fund into the stock market - the latest attempt to stop the slide on the bourse - triggered deeper concerns over the health of the world's second largest economy.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index fell 180.95 points to 10,614.02, the FBMT100 Index was down 183.01 points to 10,346.76, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index dropped 180.78 points to 11,009.11.
The FBM 70 declined 192.30 points to 11,343.89 and the FBM Ace depreciated 138.23 points to 5,072.50.
On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index slid 256.34 points to 13,875.98, the Industrial Index shed 27.24 points for 2,999.25, and the Plantation Index slipped 91.15 points to 6,778.24.
Among actives, Frontken, AirAsia and AirAsia X all eased one sen to 18 sen, 16 sen and 96 sen respectively, while Luster, Globaltec and Hubline were flat at 7.5 sen, five sen and one sen respectively.
Among heavyweights, Maybank was down 23 sen to RM8.36, Public Bank fell 40 sen to RM17.30, TNB eased 10 sen to RM10.38, Axiata shed 11 sen each to RM5.71 and Maxis slid 15 sen to RM6.34.
- Bernama
