The Thai Chamber of Commerce (TCC) has warned Thais to be ready for a jump in prices in line with the surge in crude oil prices across the world.
TCC chairman Sanan Angubolkul said on Monday that the price of oil is not likely to drop to US$20-$30 per barrel until at least the first half of 2022, especially since the price has gone beyond the $80 mark and may even rise further. He said this spike can push up the cost of raw materials and other goods.
Sanan also said it will be difficult for the price of commodity goods to drop later.
Meanwhile, Suphan Mongkolsuthree, chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries, said the jump in oil prices is very concerning, pointing out that many economies have collapsed due to this surge. However, he said, Thailand is lucky because its economy is starting to pick up.
Suphan said the government should check how much Oil Fuel Fund it has and whether it should be increased. Thailand should also work towards improving the economy, so logistics operators can improve their income. He also said the long-term solution would be to reduce the use of fossil fuel and build up renewable energy.
Spiking oil price will push up food, household bills, warns Thai Chamber of Commerce
Spiking oil price will push up food, household bills, warns Thai Chamber of CommerceSpiking oil price will push up food, household bills, warns Thai Chamber of Commerce
Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit met Chinese Ambassador Han Zhiqiang on Monday to discuss the expansion of bilateral trade and investment.
At the meeting, Jurin asked China to reopen two key checkpoints, namely Mohan and Guan Lei, that had been closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We asked the ambassador to help Thailand import fruit through the Guan Lei checkpoint and also to have relevant state officials check local chicken and birds nest factories to see if we can boost our export of these products,” he said.
“We also asked the envoy to urge COFCO, a rice-import corporation in China, to speed up the import of the remaining 280,000 tonnes of rice in line with the Thailand-China memorandum of understanding,” Jurin said.
Also on the agenda were other topics, such as the Sino-Thai Joint Trade Committee meeting, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and high-speed railway.
In the first nine months of this year, the value of Thailand-China trade stood at US$76.69 billion, up by 31.61 per cent compared to the same period last year.
The baht opened at 33.31 to the US dollar on Tuesday, strengthening from Monday’s closing rate of 33.35.
The Thai currency is likely to move between 33.20 and 33.40 during the day, Krungthai Bank market strategist Poon Panichpibool predicted.
Poon said that the baht might strengthen slightly due to the dollar weakening and gold selling. Investors might be waiting to sell the gold when the price goes up nearly 1,800 dollars per ounce.
However, the baht might fluctuate as foreign investors slow down in investing in Thai especially stocks. They will wait to see a clear picture of economic recovery after the country opening.
Moreover, foreign investors have alternative choices in investing in Asia and Southeast Asia such as Japanese and Vietnamese stocks.
The key resistance level for the baht would be from 33.40 to 33.50 to the dollar, which is the level at which exporters might sell the US currency.
Krungsri Securities forecast the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Index on Tuesday (November 2) would fluctuate between 1,600 and 1,625 points due to lack of positive sentiment and slowdown in fund flow.
It said investors were waiting for the outcome of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and Opec+ due to the expectation that FOMC would taper its quantitative easing programme, while Opec+ would raise oil production capacity by 400,000 barrels per day in December.
“Hence, we advise investors using selective buy strategy as always,” Krungsri Securities said.
It also recommended buying of the following companies’ shares as an investment strategy:
▪︎ GULF, BGRIM, CHG, BCH, BDMS, KCE and JMT, whose third-quarter profit is expected to grow.
▪︎ AOT, AAV, BA, MINT, KBANK, SCB, CPN, CRC, HMPRO, CPALL, AMATA, WHA, MAJOR, BTS, BEM and VGI, which benefit from the country reopening.
The price of gold rose by THB50 in morning trade on Tuesday.
A9.27am report from the Gold Traders Association showed the buying price of gold bar at THB28,150 per baht weight and selling price at THB28,250, while the buying and selling price of gold ornaments is THB27,636.68 and THB28,750, respectively.
At close on Monday, the buying price of gold bar was THB28,100 per baht weight and selling price THB28,200, while gold ornaments were THB27,591.20 and THB28,700, respectively.
The spot gold price on Tuesday morning was hovering around US$1,791 (THB59,711) per ounce after Comex gold at close on Monday rose by $11.9 to $1,795.8 per ounce due to pressure from the appreciation of the US dollar, including the purchase of gold as a safe-haven asset after the US released weak economic data especially the manufacturing index which fell to its lowest level in 10 months.
Around lunchtime at an Xpeng showroom in Beijing last month, a man in a three-piece suit strolled inside and straight past rows of the companys sleek P7 and P5 electric sedans.
Watching on, I saw him make a beeline for a display of a model of the company’s proposed flying car. “When will it be available?” he eagerly asked a member of sales staff. “I hope it’s in use as soon as possible.”
Other customers were focused on in-car karaoke features. Xpeng executives have recently been hyping prospects for other innovations too, like facial recognition technology and the company’s cutesy, ride-on robotic pony.
As electric-vehicle sales surge in the world’s top auto market – they’re forecast to more than double to 3 million units this year from 1.37 million in 2020 – it seems the performance of the cars themselves is becoming far less of a concern to consumers. Most models across leading brands offer ample driving range between recharging, comparable reliability and comfort, and similar sticker prices for equivalent products.
It means electric carmakers in China are competing on what happens inside the cabin: whether navigation systems are the most advanced, how effective and useful the voice-recognition software is, which social media platforms can be integrated directly with on-board systems. Other recent selling points for top brands have been car seats that can be turned into airline-style flat beds and movie projection screens.
A car’s digital technology is particularly key to lure China’s consumers and a challenge for brands seeking to add market share, Christoph Grote, BMW’s digital car chief, said last month.
As passenger vehicles increasingly resemble a smart device with wheels, manufacturers are also seizing on opportunities to expand into related technology segments. In September, Geely detailed its plans to begin making cell phones, and has also started manufacturing satellites from a center in Taizhou, Zhejiang province.
The lines are blurring in the opposite direction, too. Smartphone giant Xiaomi has pledged an initial investment of $10 billion over the next decade to push into the EV sector, and in August announced the acquisition of an autonomous driving technology startup. Foxconn Technology, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that’s a key partner for Apple, recently unveiled its first EV.
Faced with those competitors in the passenger-car segment, China’s EV makers are seeking to accelerate progress on innovations in transportation, including with flying cars.
Xpeng’s affiliate HT Aero, which last month raised more than $500 million, is developing a lightweight vertical take-off and landing model with a foldable rotor that’ll be able to drive on roads and fly at low-altitudes. Geely is among the companies, including competitor Toyota, working on an airborne product.
The Xpeng unit aims to keep the cost below $156,196 (1 million yuan) and to enter mass production by 2024. As the impatient customer in the Beijing showroom demonstrated, for some consumers, the next leap forward for China’s EV giants can’t come soon enough.
Investors drawn to cryptocurrencies can be forgiven for having an expectation of high returns, especially lately. After all, even as the S&P 500 Index more than doubled in the past five years, Bitcoin rocketed more than 80-fold — albeit with much of the rally occurring in the past year. “Memecoins” such as Dogecoin and Shiba Inu have also surged, often for no particular reason.
Big gains aren’t a given, though, especially in a market as untamed, sprawling and speculative as crypto. And the inflation in value is often ephemeral. For evidence, there’s Squid Game, or SQUID, the latest memecoin sensation, inspired by the Netflix hit. It surged more than 230,000% in the past week to $2,861.80, according to CoinMarketCap pricing — only to plunge 100% to less than half a cent as of Monday in New York.
“Betting on the right coin can lead to jaw-dropping riches,” said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto lender Nexo, in an email Sunday. “The problem is, what goes up in a straight line tends to retreat in a similar fashion.” He added, “you hear that some memecoin investors don’t care about the losses. They are in it for the ride,” but that “once the selling starts, a cascading effect can play out, so it’s wise to only use money you can afford to lose.”
Some digital assets have had eye-popping gains, with the past year’s bull market spreading beyond the likes of Bitcoin and Ether to other tokens, decentralized finance projects and more. Dogecoin, which started in 2013 as a joke, has soared 10,000% in the past year, according to CoinGecko pricing. Shiba Inu, which was created just last year, has soared more than 90,000,000%; it soared 800% in October alone.
Squid Game’s boom and bust reveals another side of the crypto frenzy: The potential for demand to suddenly dry up, or worse, for developers to abandon a project and abscond with the funds in a scam known as a rug pull. Whether that’s what happened with Squid Game is still unclear, but even before the drop, there were inconsistencies around trading. CoinMarketCap posted a warning that it had received “multiple reports” that users weren’t able to sell the token on PancakeSwap, a decentralized exchange.
“Please do your own due diligence and exercise extreme caution. This project, while clearly inspired by the Netflix show of the same name, is not affiliated with the official IP,” it says at the top of the SQUID page, referring to intellectual property.
Indeed, the Squid Game white paper says it “will implement an innovative anti-dump mechanism.” Buying in the market releases “selling credits,” it says, but adds that if there is no selling credit left “in the pool,” someone won’t be able to sell any more.
“The reality is that very few retail buyers of these memecoins actually spend the time to read the white paper or try to understand the tokenomics and governance frameworks of these coins,” said Henri Arslanian, PwC crypto leader and partner. “And that comes with risks.”
It can even be hard to know what one is investing in, with crypto opportunists creating tokens that have similar names to high-fliers. A search for “Floki” (that’s the name of Tesla Inc. founder Elon Musk’s puppy) on CoinGecko comes up with Floki Inu, Floki Musk, Shiba Floki, Baby Moon Floki, FlokiSwap and FlokiMooni.
Some have suggested that there are broader societal reasons for the moves, which dovetail with the Reddit-fueled rides in stocks such as GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. this year, as well as the breakout prices of many non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.
All of these have benefited from a grass-roots enthusiasm that spurns the old order and has little to do with the type of fundamental analysis that justifies more traditional investments.
Raoul Pal, the co-founder of crypto investment platform Real Vision Group, said in a recent Twitter thread that this is part of a “seismic” shift driven by younger people who aren’t looking for modest returns, but are instead willing to take huge risks in order to make huge amounts of money.
Others trace the speculative frenzy to the mountains of cash floating around the global financial system as the Federal Reserve and other central banks keep monetary spigots open to counter the effects of the covid-19 pandemic. But these easy-money policies have an eventual expiration date.
“There’s just a lot of money looking for the best theme. Silly or otherwise! The ‘hot ball of money’ effect,” said Jonathan Cheesman, head of over-the-counter and institutional trading at crypto derivatives exchange FTX.
One consequence is that crypto projects that have invested significant time and energy from knowledgeable people who want to apply the technology to create utility — whether it’s in financial tools like with DeFi, or ownership rights like with NFTs, or myriad other potential areas — find themselves outranked by tokens that were seemingly created with almost no effort at all.
“It is somewhat intellectually insulting to see a meme coin like #SHIB have a higher market cap than other projects like #Algorand, #Avalanche #Polygon #Stellar (just to name a few) where years of R&D, innovation and PhD talent and time has been dedicated to advancing this space,” PwC’s Arslanian said.
Crypto has delivered some wild rides, and not just memecoins. This reality may be easy to forget with Bitcoin and Ether both trading near all-time highs. Bitcoin, for example, dropped more than 80% from high to low between December 2017 and December 2018. And one need not go back that far to find an example — just look at Dogecoin earlier this year.
“On April 13 it was priced at 7 cents; 25 days later it peaked at 74 cents, and raced into the top 10 cryptos before slumping almost 80% in the next six weeks,” Nexo’s Trenchev said. “That’s how fast the crypto market can turn against you.”
Investment history is strewn with examples of booms and busts. The verdict on this current craze has yet to be determined, but individuals who are piling in now risk learning a hard lesson somewhere down the line. Squid Game investors already did.
Stocks traded near their all-time highs as solid corporate earnings overshadowed disappointing manufacturing data. Treasuries fell.
The S&P 500 rebounded from session lows, led by commodity and retail shares. The Dow Jones Industrial Average earlier touched the 36,000 level for the first time. A gauge of small caps climbed about 2%.
More than 80% of S&P 500 companies reporting third-quarter results have beaten Wall Street estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That has laid the groundwork for a nearly 6% gain in the benchmark since the season began — the best performance over a comparable period in seven years.
Meanwhile, data showed persistent supply-chain challenges continued to weigh on U.S. manufacturers in October. The average time it takes for materials and supplies to reach U.S. factory floors increased to a record last month. Federal Reserve officials meet this week as consumers and companies fret the U.S. economy is facing the most-widespread supply crunch since the oil crisis of 1973.
“There are always risks to the outlook,” said Evan Brown, head of asset allocation at UBS Asset Management. “But stocks have a habit of climbing the wall of worry as long as underlying economic fundamentals are sound.”
For Morgan Stanley strategist Michael Wilson, the bullish trend for stocks may continue into the Thanksgiving holiday later this month, but “not much longer” as the Fed is expected to start tapering and earnings growth will slow further into next year.
Stocks
– The S&P 500 rose 0.1% as of 12:53 p.m. New York time
– The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.1%
– The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3%
– The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.7%
– The MSCI World index rose 0.4%
Currencies
– The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
– The euro rose 0.3% to $1.1592
– The British pound fell 0.1% to $1.3665
– The Japanese yen fell 0.2% to 114.18 per dollar
Bonds
– The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced three basis points to 1.59%
– Germany’s 10-year yield was little changed at -0.10%
– Britain’s 10-year yield advanced three basis points to 1.06%
Commodities
– West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.7% to $84.17 a barrel
A high-level task force of financial regulators recommended Monday that firms that issue stablecoins – a type of cryptocurrency linked to real-world assets – be more tightly regulated but called on Congress to write the necessary laws, suggesting they lacked the power themselves.
The report – written by a Treasury-led group that includes Secretary Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler – was widely anticipated as the administration’s first attempt at establishing a framework for the $2 trillion cryptocurrency industry.
The report advocates requiring each firm that issues stablecoins to register with a federal or state banking regulator – which it did not specify – and maintain an adequate cushion of capital and enough liquidity to meet any short-term obligations. It also suggests investors in stablecoins should get at least some of their holdings covered by deposit insurance.
At the same time, the report suggested that existing regulators don’t have the authority to impose such requirements on the industry under current laws.
“If well-designed and appropriately regulated, stablecoins could support faster, more efficient, and more inclusive payments options,” the report says. But it notes stablecoins also present “a variety of risks” and there are “key gaps” in regulators’ ability to address them.
Stablecoins are a subset of the cryptocurrency industry. Unlike bitcoin and other popular digital currencies, which are purely speculative assets, stablecoins’ value is pegged to that of hard currencies like the dollar or metals like gold.
Currently, stablecoins mainly serve to make it easier for crypto investors to conduct trades. In the future, boosters of stablecoins say a much broader swath of consumers could use them for everyday retail purposes.
Critics argue firms issuing stablecoins – whose circulation has skyrocketed from $29 billion at the start of the year to more than $133 billion today – too often make it impossible for regulators and consumers alike to see what assets are backing up the tokens and how easily those who buy them could trade the tokens back in for their face value.
These critics worry without stronger oversight, a misstep could prompt a sort of bank run that poses a risk to the broader financial system. They slammed the report for punting the matter to Congress, where they said crypto lobbyists will overrun the process.
“I have deep concerns about this report,” said Todd Phillips, who focuses on financial regulation at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “I don’t think this Congress is interested in addressing stablecoins alone. So if Congress were to intervene, I expect they’d work to weaken the regulatory apparatus for all cryptocurrencies currently in existence.”
The SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission already are flexing some regulatory power over stablecoins. Gensler, who has described the tokens as “poker chips at the casino” of the crypto trading frenzy, argues stablecoins display properties of securities and should be overseen by his agency. The SEC recently threatened to sue Coinbase if it launched a program that allowed stablecoin investors to earn interest on their holdings by lending them out; the company shelved the plan.
And the CFTC last month announced a $41 million settlement with Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer in the world, over charges it lied for years about holding a dollar in reserve for each of its tokens.
Rostin Benham, nominated to chair the commission, said at a confirmation hearing last week that almost 60% of the crypto market consists of commodities and the CFTC should therefore work with the SEC to regulate it.
The Treasury-led group in its report acknowledged a role for those agencies, specifically focused on the use of stablecoins for trading and lending. In the absence of congressional action, regulators “are committed to taking action to address risks falling within each agency’s jurisdiction, including efforts to ensure that stablecoins and related activity comply with existing legal obligations, as well as continued coordination and collaboration on issues of common interest,” the report says.
And the group recommends the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a super committee of regulators formed after the 2008 financial crisis, examine any risks stablecoins could pose to the stability of the broader financial system. If any activities associated with stablecoins are even on the way toward becoming such a threat, the council could move to impose new restrictions.
OPEC+ headed for a clash with the U.S. as more members rejected President Joe Bidens call for the group to raise oil production faster and help reduce gasoline prices.
On Monday, Kuwait said the cartel should stick with its plan to increase output gradually because oil markets were well-balanced. That followed similar statements from other key members in recent days, including Iraq, Algeria, Angola and Nigeria.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies — led by Saudi Arabia and Russia — meet on Thursday with pressure from oil consumers mounting as prices climb toward $85 a barrel. American gasoline is at a seven-year high of $3.70 a gallon.
The U.S., India, Japan and other importers are waging a campaign to force the group to ease last year’s pandemic-triggered supply curbs more quickly.
“The idea that Russia and Saudi Arabia and other major producers are not going to pump more oil so people can have gasoline to get to and from work, for example, is not right,” Biden said Sunday.
While Biden declined to say how he would react if OPEC+ doesn’t change tack, analysts have speculated the U.S. might sell some of its strategic petroleum reserves.
OPEC+’s plan of boosting daily production by 400,000 barrels each month “is working well and there is no need to deviate from it,” Angola’s oil minister, Diamantino Pedro Azevedo, said Sunday.
Many members, including Saudi Arabia, have argued they shouldn’t pump crude any faster because the pandemic is still sapping demand. Some are already struggling to reach their higher output quotas after last year’s deep cuts, and say bringing production back more rapidly would make their task even more difficult.
“We are not yet out of the woods,” Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman told Bloomberg Television on Oct. 23. “We don’t take things for granted, we still have Covid.”
OPEC+ has said that increasing crude exports would do little to bring down power prices, which have soared in parts of Europe and Asia due to shortages of natural gas and coal.
Still, OPEC+ has often surprised the market with sudden changes of policy. And while Riyadh and Moscow have both praised the group’s strategy, neither has directly addressed Biden’s comments in public, giving themselves room for maneuver.
The dispute comes as world leaders convene for the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow. The U.S has said it will push for more action to fight climate change while also trying to ensure the global economic recovery isn’t derailed by higher energy prices.
Spiking oil price will push up food, household bills, warns Thai Chamber of Commerce
Spiking oil price will push up food, household bills, warns Thai Chamber of Commerce
Spiking oil price will push up food, household bills, warns Thai Chamber of Commerce
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