Asian currencies roiled by West’s virus fears

SCB Securities senior market strategist Jitipol Puksamatanan predicted the value would float between Bt31.40 and Bt31.60.
“Asian currencies including the baht were pressured by the US bear market [on Thursday] morning,” he said.
US bond yields were stable in value despite a “credibility problem”. 
“This caused a positive effect for the dollar in the short term. It’s possible that we’ll see speculative selling power at this time, and that would pressure the baht as well as other Asian currencies.”
The financial market was in a “risk off” state at Wednesday’s close after the World Health Organisation upgraded the Covid-19 epidemic to a pandemic. 
The S&P500 decreased by 4.9 per cent, pushing the stock market into bear-market mode.
The price of WTI crude oil fell by 3.6 per cent and gold by 0.8 per cent. The yen strengthened by 1.1 per cent, while the Ten-Years Treasury grew 0.81 per cent.
The Bank of England this week lowered the interest rate to 0.5 per cent to help entrepreneurs hurt by the Covid-19 scare. But the British pound shed 2.2 per cent in value and the stock market 1.4 per cent due to investor concern about the UK economy and the way the government was tackling the virus.