Baht What up with Dat?????

I never doubted the figures but can they be relied upon. are you saying that statistics cannot be manipulated to show better than they really are ?

Context is often important to figures - in my opinion numbers on exports don't tell you all that much unless you also look at the numbers on imports.

I’ve just taken a look at BOTH the export and import figures (in THB) for the first half of 2010 and compared them to 2009.

Exports: Up from 2,352 billion by 649 billion to 3,001 billion.


An increase of 27.6% year on year (well it's nearly the 30% quoted in the article).

Imports: Up from 1,944 billion by 837 billion to 2,781 billion.


An increase of 43.0% year on year.

The improvement in exports looks really good....... until you look at the increase in import figures.

Moving on to the trade balance (exports minus imports):

Trade Balance: Down from a surplus of 408 billion by 188 billion to 220 billion.


A decrease of 44.9% year on year.

Note: All the above figures are directly calculated from BoT data (however it should be noted that all the data is still shown by the BoT as provisional).

Source of figures: http://www.bot.or.th/English/Statistics ... ents.aspx#

As I have pointed out before, much of the increase in exports is related to the export of parts imported to Thailand, assembled in Thailand and then exported from Thailand.

It should be noted also that where non Thai companies are involved the profit on these exports will ultimately result in cash outflows from Thailand as the profits are repatriated to the parent company/country.

Not as simple as it looks is it? If the U.S. ever gets around to putting people back to work the exchange rates will change, Right now it's not so much the good news from Thailand as the bad News elsewhere. If we have a slow recovery and see little possibility for anything but that unless it's more bad news, there is little hope for relief in the near future.

On the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a chart of the quarterly exports, imports and trade balances for Thailand from Q1-1987 to Q2-2010.


Note: The figures from Q1-2008 to Q2-2010 should be treated with a degree of caution as they are still classed as provisional.

Data source: http://www.bot.or.th/English/Statistics ... ments.aspx

Looks like pretty steady growth, what does the trade imbalance reflect?

Bu the way where have you been on my stock thread

An interesting aside:

The article is long and it's about bonds, but in that it indicates that individual in American's saving rate has went from 1.7% to 6.4 %.

The bond side of it Obama is selling the debt at ridicules rates in bonds, for what else to inject more money in the System. It seems Companies are holding on to trillions of dollars not hiring and hoarding the cash.

The one thing desperately needed is people working . That doesn't even seem to be in the equation, until that happens I don't see much relief for dollar holders against the baht.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-1 ... icits.html

Continuing its trend.....down!Hit 31.66 today!

Have we been lower then that before seems to me somewhere in the past few years we got down to 29

That was 3 years ago Ray,then it started up,only to stumble back down 6 months later,then it climbed to over 36 in the next year,but about 1 1/2 years ago,it started a steady trend downward with the very visible signs and reasons why.steadily getting stronger!

bumper wrote:Have we been lower then that before seems to me somewhere in the past few years we got down to 29

My daily chart of the average closing buy/sell rates from January 2001 showing the high and low points.

That chart is definitely wrong.I distinctly remember the baht going just below 30 ,3 years ago!

nkstan wrote:That chart is definitely wrong.I distinctly remember the baht going just below 30 ,3 years ago!

Sorry Stan, in this case your memory is faulty, the chart is 100% correct.

JimboPSM wrote:

nkstan wrote:That chart is definitely wrong.I distinctly remember the baht going just below 30 ,3 years ago!

Sorry Stan, in this case your memory is faulty, the chart is 100% correct.

Thinking about it further, you may be partially correct.

I believe that you may be thinking of the time when a two tier rate was introduced to stop speculation in the THB.

The rates I have used in my charts were the official rates that were available to the general public (i.e. you or I) at the time as opposed to those that the BoT instructed the commercial banks to use to stop the speculators - I do remember that there were numerous cases where the commercial banks incorrectly used the wrong rates for private individuals.

Just to help confirm my daily chart, here is a similar chart based on the published average monthly buy/sell rates from the Bank of Thailand from January 2001 to July 2010.

Data source: http://www.bot.or.th/English/Statistics ... eRate.aspx

JimboPSM wrote:

nkstan wrote:That chart is definitely wrong.I distinctly remember the baht going just below 30 ,3 years ago!

Sorry Stan, in this case your memory is faulty, the chart is 100% correct.

Here is a link to a Yahoo Finace interactive chart,showing 3 days of closing below 30 in 2007;JUly 16 at 29.90,July 30 at 20.85 and dec.31 at 29.70....... plus I did get 29.62 from the ATM during some period in 2007 even though my memory is faulty at times

Link:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=USDT ... l=USDTHB=X