Statement By The Governor Of The Fed Jerome Powell Makes Rupiah Strengthen

Illustrated. (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - The rupiah exchange rate on the spot market strengthened at the opening of trading today, Wednesday 2 December. The rupiah opened up 0.07 percent to a level of Rp14,120 per US dollar (US).

Monex Investindo Futures Head of Research, Ariston Tjendra said two positive sentiments, namely the potential for US fiscal stimulus and the statement by Jerome Powell, the Governor of the Fed who still wanted to maintain monetary easing to help the US economy recover, helped weaken the US dollar exchange rate against other exchange rates.

"The US dollar index also continues to create a new 2020 low at 91.19. This sentiment may be able to encourage the strengthening of the rupiah exchange rate which weakened again yesterday," Ariston told VOI.

On the other hand, he continued, the increase in COVID-19 cases in Indonesia could suppress the rupiah exchange rate. Garuda's currency is predicted to move in the range of IDR 14,050-14,200 per US dollar.

At 09.00 WIB, the majority of currencies in the region managed to strengthen. The biggest gain was printed by the Chinese yuan, which rose 0.16 percent, followed by the Malaysian ringgit which rose 0.15 percent in front of the US dollar.

Then, the South Korean won which lifted 0.12 percent and the Taiwan dollar which appreciated 0.11 percent. Followed by the Thai baht which managed to rise 0.08 percent this morning.

Furthermore, there was the Singapore dollar which seemed to have slightly strengthened by 0.02 percent against the US dollar.

Meanwhile, the Japanese yen became the currency with the deepest weakness in Asia after dropping 0.11 percent. Following this, the Philippine peso and the Hong Kong dollar were both down 0.01 percent this morning.