but I've always wondered why a stable coin would fluctuate as that seems to defeat the designation/purpose of stable

Well, there is no such thing as a stable coin, all currencies fluctuate relative to each other and we shouldn't expect anything different from HBD. The best we can hope for is for it to fluctuate within an acceptable range.

As of late it has been tracking the value of the dollar very closely (except on 4/30 and 5/1) but the price is very sensitive to the debt ratio: