Baht unchanged while speculative sales weaken Asian currencies

The Thai currency is expected to move between 30.98 and 31.18, said Jitipol Puksamatanan, head of Markets Strategy at SCB Securities.
On Thursday night, the financial markets fluctuated. The S&P 500 rose by 0.64 per cent, from movement in technology stocks, while Stoxx Europe 600 fell by 0.73 per cent, due to investors’ sales for speculation.
The recent US initial jobless claims decreased to 1.19 million positions, and continuous claims fell to 16 million.
However, this factor could not change the market from risk-off to risk-on. The US Ten-Year Treasury reduced to 0.54 per cent, enabling gold price to rise by 1.4 per cent to $2.006 per ounce.
Asian currencies started to weaken compared to the dollar, after investors sold those currencies in emerging markets for speculation.
In the short term, the strategist said that most investors had no clear view on investment, and were waiting for non-farms payrolls to be announced on Friday evening. This would also confine the baht to move in narrow range.
The strategist said that the instability of US politics and direction of global stock markets were key factors to determine the direction of currencies.