Malaysia’s Reserves Extend Slump as Global Currency Rout Deepens

Malaysia’s foreign-exchange reserves extended their decline beyond $100 billion in a sign the central bank is still trying to slow Asia’s worst currency loss amid the drag from an emerging-market sell off.

Holdings fell 2.3 percent to a six-year low of $94.5 billion in the first 14 days of August from two weeks earlier, Bank Negara Malaysia data showed Friday, after they dropped below $100 billion last month for the first time since 2010. While Southeast Asia’s biggest economies excluding the Philippines have all drawn down reserves this year, Malaysia’s slid four times as fast as those in Indonesia, whose rupiah is the second worst-performing currency.