Gloves are off as Malaysia’s strong ringgit bites into profits of world’s largest makers

Malaysia’s world-leading producers of latex gloves are facing tightened profit margins as the nation’s strong currency bites into dollar-denominated earnings, underscoring challenges for the nation’s exporters. “While ringgit strength lowers systemic risk at the macro level, it comes at the expense of exporter earnings,” said Teck Yong Eng, business enterprise and analytics professor at the University of Reading Malaysia. The strengthened Malaysian currency hurt first-quarter earnings of Top...