Baht weakens as global economies wrestle downturn

The baht is expected to move at between Bt32.15 to Bt32.50 per US dollar, SCB Securities senior market strategist Jitipol Puksamatanan said.
On Monday night, the S&P 500 index dropped by 12 per cent, while the US 10-year Treasury contracted by 24 basis points to 0.72 per cent. The price of WTI crude oil decreased by 9.6 per cent, touching $28.69 per barrel.
“The market is highly interested in the co-use of financial policy in large economic groups,” he said. “Meanwhile, the measures to suspend travel and the pressure on people to avoid close proximity with each other is pulling economies in many countries down.”
The Bank of Korea has lowered its interest rate by 50 basis points to 0.7 per cent at an urgent meeting on Monday. In addition, the Bank of Japan has purchased government bonds worth $940 (100 billion yen) within one day, and would buy ETF and J-REIT under the limit of 12 trillion and 120 billion yen, respectively, if the market still fluctuated.
The US dollar weakened on Monday night, in line with the US stock market. Recently, the yen strengthened from 108 yen to 106 yen per US dollar.
“in the next phase, investors have to monitor the global economy. We believe that a closed-country policy would be used more and more, pressuring the baht and risk assets” the SCB strategist said.