Mighty Tuesday Rupiah, Strengthening To Rp14,770 Per US Dollar

JAKARTA - The rupiah exchange rate on the spot market was able to close higher on trading Tuesday, May 19. The rupiah closed up 0.54 percent or 80 points to a level of Rp14,770 per United States dollar (US).

Head of Research at Monex Investindo Futures, Ariston Tjendra, said that the strengthening of the rupiah was driven by positive sentiments. One of them is the market welcomes the progress of the discovery of the COVID-19 vaccine by the Biotechnology company Moderna.

"Another positive sentiment is that Bank Indonesia (BI) still supports the provision of stimulus to the market even though it has maintained its benchmark interest rate. So the rupiah will still receive strengthening support against the US dollar until this afternoon," Ariston told VOI.

The strengthening of the rupiah is in line with currencies in the region, which are mostly compact, strengthening. As of 15:00 WIB, the Malaysian ringgit was the currency with the biggest gain after gaining 0.62 percent. This was followed by the South Korean won which strengthened 0.59 percent. Furthermore, there was the Philippine peso which appreciated 0.36 percent against the US dollar.

Then the Indian rupee and Thai baht both gained 0.26 percent. Then, the Taiwan dollar and Singapore dollar were also seen in the green zone after gaining 0.12 percent and 0.04 percent respectively.

Followed by the Hong Kong dollar and the Chinese yuan which both managed to slightly increase 0.01 percent. Meanwhile, the Japanese yen became the region's only currency in the red zone after weakening 0.07 percent against the US dollar.