Baht weakens, analyst advises investors to monitor market direction

The Thai currency is likely to move between 30.20 and 30.40, said Jitipol Puksamatanan, senior director of the chief investment office at SCB Securities.
On Wednesday night, the S&P 500 and Stoxx 600 decreased by 0.1 and 0.2 per cent, respectively. This came amid investor concern that the US economy would recover slowly. Another factor was several EU countries deciding to lock down until the end of the year.
The US announced that its gross domestic product in the third quarter grew by 33.1 per cent from the previous quarter. At the same time, there were 778,000 US initial jobless claims this week, Jitipol noted.
Meanwhile, the US Ten-Year Treasury yield decreased by 1 basis point to 0.88 per cent, while the dollar continued to weaken, hitting the lowest level since April 2018. This came on the heels of the Federal Reserve stating that it would purchase more assets in the near future.
Jitipol said an obvious change will not take place in Thailand in the short term due to the weakened dollar and selling power of risk assets in the market.
He said foreign investors had recently sold the bonds they held to buy stocks in Thailand. He advised investors to monitor the stock market direction, which could weaken the baht. The baht would move within the frame of 30.70 per US dollar this quarter, he added.