Why Is The Baht Not Dropping

[30la]

Calm and cold-blooded, the collapse this time will be much harder than in 1997!
At the moment there are too many interests and the Thai central bank keeps the Baht high!

[Isaan sailor]

Look for currency inversions.  The overall pattern for the past two years;  USD down, Baht up, and Yuan up with the same inverted pattern.  Meanwhile, Thailand’s USD currency reserves skyrocket to historic levels.

China gives Thailand a whole lot more than Wuhan virus.

[Wake Up]

If posters on thai visa were smart currency traders they would not be posting on thai visa they would be enjoying a nice comfortable life. ????????????

[Wake Up]

2 hours ago, possum1931 said:

Anyone who keeps 800.000 Bt in a Thai bank will eventually end up in the Funny Farm, Oh wait! No Funny Farms in Thailand, the Loonies are all on the roads. .

Spoken like a man with no money to spare. Expert at currency you are ????

[Tony125]

5 hours ago, saengd said:

And it looks like it's carrying across to GBP nicely.

 

https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/data/currencies/gbp-pairs/GBPTHB-exchange-rate/

USDTHB

US Dollar/Thai Baht FX Spot Rate

31.34▲

+0.19+0.61%

 

[bronzedude]

Quoting Internet rates is fine and dandy and looks good for the moment. But get real and go to street level, to the exchange booths, or to a bank and you never get close to what's quoted on the internet. 

[spiekerjozef]

Why is the pound not dropping more?

[tomauasia]

On 2/6/2020 at 9:14 PM, AussieBob18 said:

Thai Govt and China Govt have been pushing up the Baht through many different policies for years - the result is a bloated currency that is massively over valued since 2014 - but that pays for the large military purchases and infrastructure projects that China provides.  Eventually it will fall - and eventually the recession will happen - and when it falls it will fall a lot.

 

Yes

[mike787]

Because Thais do not want foreigners living here...

[Traubert]

21 minutes ago, mike787 said:

Because Thais do not want foreigners living here...

Well don't be so rude and dismissive of them then. Learn to get along.

 

After all, it is their country, you all invited yourself like a drunken uncle at Christmas, you're ruining the ambience.

[mike787]

12 minutes ago, Traubert said:

Well don't be so rude and dismissive of them then. Learn to get along.

 

After all, it is their country, you all invited yourself like a drunken uncle at Christmas, you're ruining the ambience.

I already support my thai girl, her village, and friends...how much more rude can i be?  Have you seen the party atmosphere on walking street...wake up buddy.

[Traubert]

6 minutes ago, mike787 said:

I already support my thai girl, her village, and friends...how much more rude can i be?  Have you seen the party atmosphere on walking street...wake up buddy.

Congratulations.

 

But I don't think her village matters much in the bigger picture.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Traubert

[mike787]

2 minutes ago, Traubert said:

Congratulations.

 

But I don't think her village matters much in the bigger picture.

Says who it doesn't matter...you?  Your GOD...show us where it is written it doesn't matter?  If it's your opinion you can keep it.  It aint your money.  Tell that to all the expats living here contributing to the thai people and the country it does not matter.  Collectively, all us expats contribute to the BIG picture.  Define Bigger picture?  What metric have you decided to apply as an evaluation as to what does not qualify or matter?  Square size on land, geography, population, specific villages, demographics, etc, etc??????

[DannyCarlton]

6 hours ago, bronzedude said:

Quoting Internet rates is fine and dandy and looks good for the moment. But get real and go to street level, to the exchange booths, or to a bank and you never get close to what's quoted on the internet. 

I withdrew cash on my credit card from my Thai bank yesterday and got 40+ baht/£. Using this method always gets me close to the quoted rate.

[saengd]

6 hours ago, spiekerjozef said:

Why is the pound not dropping more?

The answer lies in the USD story.

 

USD is strengthening, the Dollar Index has risen from 97.2 to 98.6 in the past week, this is a combination of market reaction to positive employment data, the end of the impeachment trial and a rush into safe havens resulting from the virus scare. https://www.investing.com/currencies/us-dollar-index

 

GBP was sold quite heavily at the end of last month and is now slowly recovering, future Brexit trade woes hang heavy, again. There is some suggestion that the Pound might benefit from safe haven status re. the virus scare. https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/gbp-live-today/12764-pound-to-euro-and-dollar-rallies-into-the-weekend

 

So USD is up quite a lot (above), plus THB is weakening through BOT intervention, the FCR's have increased only USD 10 bill. since August (see below). 

 

https://www.bot.or.th/App/BTWS_STAT/statistics/ReportPage.aspx?reportID=94&language=eng

 

 

[nausea]

Timing is everything.

[saengd]

2 minutes ago, nausea said:

Timing is everything.

Timing the market is a mugs game but I agree sometimes people get lucky.

[Chivas]

7 hours ago, bronzedude said:

Quoting Internet rates is fine and dandy and looks good for the moment. But get real and go to street level, to the exchange booths, or to a bank and you never get close to what's quoted on the internet. 

When comparing weakness and strengths of currencies you always quote interbank rates. Out of interest TT exchanges update at 17-18 Satang under interbank.

[Chivas]

15 minutes ago, saengd said:

Timing the market is a mugs game but I agree sometimes people get lucky.

I agree entirely. I am a very half decent futures trader (not forex) but I can tell you charts candles and all the rest are all well and good but more often than not 11 trades out of 20 come good (which keeps you profitable) by often sheer luck.

 

Twitter news moves markets quicker than anything

[BritManToo]

7 hours ago, bronzedude said:

Quoting Internet rates is fine and dandy and looks good for the moment. But get real and go to street level, to the exchange booths, or to a bank and you never get close to what's quoted on the internet. 

I get XE internet rates every trade (transferwise).

41.2 last weekend.

[Chivas]

1 minute ago, BritManToo said:

I get XE internet rates every trade (transferwise).

41.2 last weekend.

I was actually going to mention transferwise and full interbank just now but you gotta take into account the sending fee. Normally when you then crunch the numbers it comes out around the same as yellow TT exchange rate (or at least for Sterling)

[saengd]

5 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

I get XE internet rates every trade (transferwise).

41.2 last weekend.

I saw where you wrote that and I checked the market at that time and indeed 41.2 was possible but that was the inter-bank rate without any margin applied. Let's face it, Transferwise and every other money mover is in the game to make profit plus Transferwise is not a bank so they don't have direct access to the inter-bank rate so what other numbers were involved in that transaction only you will know.

[sscc]

2 hours ago, Chivas said:

I was actually going to mention transferwise and full interbank just now but you gotta take into account the sending fee. Normally when you then crunch the numbers it comes out around the same as yellow TT exchange rate (or at least for Sterling)

What I noticed in the case of  US$ 1000 conversion is net Baht received and deposited to Thai bank account via Transferwise is just marginally lower than exchanging US$ 1000 cash at TT yellow booth.  The difference in baht is very slim. 

 

If the amount gets higher, then transferwise is more favorable.  

[saengd]

1 minute ago, sscc said:

What I noticed in the case of  US$ 1000 conversion is net Baht received and deposited to Thai bank account via Transferwise is just marginally lower than exchanging US$ 1000 cash at TT yellow booth.  The difference in baht is very slim. 

 

If the amount gets higher, then transferwise is more favorable.  

I believe it's the other way around, if the transfer amount gets higher Transferwise become less economically viable. For example, I pay four Pounds to HSBC to make an international transfer to Thailand plus I pay up to 500 Baht as a recieving fee on this end. For smaller amount Transferwise wins the day, for larger amounts it looses out to HSBC.

[Chivas]

3 minutes ago, saengd said:

I believe it's the other way around, if the transfer amount gets higher Transferwise become less economically viable. For example, I pay four Pounds to HSBC to make an international transfer to Thailand plus I pay up to 500 Baht as a recieving fee on this end. For smaller amount Transferwise wins the day, for larger amounts it looses out to HSBC.

Yes the issue with Transferwise is the sending fee is on a rising scale but your own bank HSBC (or Halifax in my case) have a flat fee so there comes a point that the flat fee with monies landing at Telegraphic transfer rates will give a better bottom line than Transferwise which lands at Interbank rates but with those rising scale of fees

 

I did a comparison few years ago and the Halifax over £6350 gave a better bottom line when the funds landed in my account. I will do another comparison when have time see if thats changed

[sscc]

4 minutes ago, saengd said:

I believe it's the other way around, if the transfer amount gets higher Transferwise become less economically viable. For example, I pay four Pounds to HSBC to make an international transfer to Thailand plus I pay up to 500 Baht as a recieving fee on this end. For smaller amount Transferwise wins the day, for larger amounts it looses out to HSBC.

Transferwise service fee is a variable percentage of the Amount send out. 

Lower amount is higher in percentage,  say  US$ 100,  it may be around 4.0% fee. 

US $1000 is around  1.2 %.     US  $ 2000 is around 1.1 %  

 

After the fee deduction,  the conversion rate is identical regardless of amount sent. 

Let's say sending  US $ 100,   they convert US  $ 96 to Baht.

 

That's why higher amount is better for Transferwise. 

 

In the receiving end,   K-bank charges me nothing.   

Transferwise amount is identical to K-bank deposit amount for all I have done so far 

 

 

[saengd]

2 minutes ago, sscc said:

Transferwise service fee is a variable percentage of the Amount send out. 

Lower amount is higher in percentage,  say  US$ 100,  it may be around 4.0% fee. 

US $1000 is around  1.2 %.     US  $ 2000 is around 1.1 %  

 

After the fee deduction,  the conversion rate is identical regardless of amount sent. 

Let's say sending  US $ 100,   they convert US  $ 96 to Baht.

 

That's why higher amount is better for Transferwise. 

 

In the receiving end,   K-bank charges me nothing.   

Transferwise amount is identical to K-bank deposit amount for all I have done so far 

 

 

Read my post again, I wrote Pounds, not percent, HSBC is a fixed fee of four Pounds, regardless of the amount sent.

[PingRoundTheWorld]

On 2/6/2020 at 8:14 PM, AussieBob18 said:

Eventually it will fall - and eventually the recession will happen - and when it falls it will fall a lot.

With tourism pretty much gone for the foreseeable future, I suspect "eventually" will be quite soon. I expect the baht, the condo market, and possibly the entire economy to crash this year. The writing has been on the wall for a long time now - it just needed a catalyst and this will probably be it.

[saengd]

3 minutes ago, PingRoundTheWorld said:

With tourism pretty much gone for the foreseeable future, I suspect "eventually" will be quite soon. I expect the baht, the condo market, and possibly the entire economy to crash this year. The writing has been on the wall for a long time now - it just needed a catalyst and this will probably be it.

Yours is one of the fumiest posts I've read for a while regarding the Thai economy.

 

What exactly is your definition of "crash", zero tourists, half of the 39 million, how many?

And the Baht, what are you expecting 60 or 70 per Pound once again?

And condo's, are you anticipating 50% of fire sales?

Anything more you can by way of clarification?

 

[PingRoundTheWorld]

22 minutes ago, saengd said:

Anything more you can by way of clarification?

If I could forecast the actual numbers I'd be rich already. Nah. What I do know is that tourism is going to remain dead for at least a few months (AKA 20% of GDP). Exports are already doing poorly due to the high baht. The condo market is saturated with most new units unsold and no buyers in sight. In my building 50% of units are unsold, 33% have been converted to hotel/airbnb - mainly Chinese daily renters, and only 17% owned/occupied. Without the Chinese the building is 83% empty. How long do you think this will last before owners and companies decide to cut their losses short?

 

And that's assuming they actually managed to contain the virus here in Thailand - if they failed then it will tear the country apart both economically and socially. We will know soon.