The Thai baht opened this morning at 34.57 baht to the US dollar, a very slight strengthening from the previous day's closing level of 34.58 baht, Krung Thai Bank's foreign currency analyst, Poon Panitpiboon says.

Oil fluctuated in a choppy trading session as investors weighed the odds that the White House will intervene to cool rising energy prices and assessed declines in stockpile levels at the biggest crude storage hub in the U.S.