Thread: Thailand's Baht, Peso --- Decline

Originally Posted by Thormaturge

Rather than muck about with currency converters I prefer to bookmark this ->

Siam Commercial Bank

That's very good, cheers

anyway we have hit a financial iceberg, and things are going to be really bad for a while in the coming months, might last as long as 1 or 2 years, maybe more for some countries

HBOS biggest faller on FTSE today (again)...

HBOS
*All Times GMTSelect time span for charts: One month Three months Twelve months Intra-dayprice
change
%
52 wk-h
52 wk-l
264.2511.75
4.26
1017.00258.

This won't do Sterling any good:

British household debt is highest in history


By Edmund Conway

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 28/06/2008





British households are now more indebted than those of any other major country in recorded history, it has emerged.

Families in the UK now owe a record 173pc of their incomes in debts, official figures have shown. The ratio of debt to income is higher than any other country in the Group of Seven leading industrialised economies, and is sharply higher than the 129pc of incomes it was five years ago.

The figures, published by the Office for National Statistics as part of its National Accounts, underline the scale of the coming slowdown facing the UK, economists warned yesterday.

Michael Saunders of Citigroup warned that - at 173pc of household incomes - the debt burden is higher even than Japan's when it peaked in 1990, before more than a decade of deflation.

"Not only are we the highest in the G7, we are the highest a G7 country has ever seen," he said.

Continued here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/mai.../cndebt128.xml

Originally Posted by Thormaturge

Rather than muck about with currency converters I prefer to bookmark this -> Siam Commercial Bank

or this one

Foreign Exchange Rates

^ that one timed out.

Siam Comerical 1 USD = 33.58 THB

Hope it continues to 40 baht to the dollar!

Originally Posted by baldrick

Originally Posted by Thormaturge

Rather than muck about with currency converters I prefer to bookmark this -> Siam Commercial Bank

or this one

Foreign Exchange Rates

Or even this, the daddy of them all :

Daily Foreign Exchange Rates

LONDON, July 1 (Reuters) - Britain's City Lofts has been forced to place 250 unsold apartments into receivership in light of the country's housing slump, a spokesman for the privately owned urban apartment developer said on Tuesday.

The spokesman declined to specify how much of the overall business was affected.

City Lofts, partly owned by U.S. private equity firm JER Partners and investment bank Lehman Brothers (LEH.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), was the first major British residential developer to fall victim to the credit crunch, an earlier report in trade magazine Property Week said.

The report said City Lofts creditor Bank of Scotland Corporate, part of Britain's biggest mortgage bank HBOS (HBOS.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), had appointed Jon Gershinson of property services firm Allsop as a receiver on the unsold units as well as on a development site.

The assets are located in Manchester, Nottingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Cardiff and Birmingham.

Allsop could not be immediately reached for comment while Bank of Scotland declined to comment.

HBOS's loans and investment in housebuilding represent less than 1 percent of the group's balance sheet, but its stakes in groups including Crest Nicholson, McCarthy & Stone, Countryside Properties, Miller Group and Tulloch have become a growing concern for analysts in recent weeks. (Reporting by William Kemble-Diaz; Editing by Erica Billingham, Leslie Gevirtz)

Its leaking mainstream. Be warned...

UPDATE 1-UK developer City Lofts puts assets in receivership | Industries | Financial Services & Real Estate | Reuters

I have been looking for the first article to emerge putting two and two together with regards to the collapsing housing market, rising bad debt and bank failure and the effect it will have on Sterling and we have the first one (I wish these journos would keep up!):

UK Housing Bust to Hit British Pound :: The Market Oracle :: Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting Free Website

UK Housing Bust to Hit British Pound


Jack Crooks writes: I've pointed out many times here in my Money and Markets column that interest rates and economic growth are always the two primary fundamental drivers of currency prices. Therefore, it's no stretch to conclude that housing has been the Achilles' heel for the U.S. dollar.

But what if there's another major currency country that has a much worse outlook for its housing market? Would we then expect bad housing news to play a similar role in pushing its respective currency lower? I think the short answer is: Yes!

It's fitting on this Independence Day holiday weekend that we examine the incredible exposure to housing prices in our motherland — the UK — compared to the U.S. And once you take a look at the ugly factoids in context, I think you will understand why ...

The UK Economy and Pound Are In Trouble

I recently read this poignant comment by Jim Grant, long-term editor and market sage for Grant's Interest Rate Observer :

"The full catalog of the consumer's troubles would fill out a Sunday-morning sermon in a Puritanical meeting house. Improvidence compounded by idolatry — yea, the worship not of graven images but of houses — is the sum and substance of the situation."

Clearly, the pricking of the housing bubble was the catalyst for the downward spiral in the U.S. economy. It has paved the way for lower interest rates and varying degrees of desperate measures from our Money Gods — the Federal Reserve.


But if you think the U.S. has economic issues, get a load of the extreme exposure to housing the UK's economy is grappling with ...

• UK consumers have about $278 billion in residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS). This is the toxic derivative-related stuff; RMBS are the dirtiest four letters in "The City" right now. UK exposure to RMBS is the largest exposure in Europe by far.
• Britain's total RMBS exposure is dwarfed by the $4.39 trillion racked up in the U.S. But as a percentage of total GDP, the UK RMBS exposure is a whopping 7%, whereas the U.S. RMBS exposure to GDP is a miniscule 0.2%.
• Residential mortgage debt outstanding per capita in the UK is 136%; it is 103% in the U.S.
• Residential mortgage debt to GDP in the UK is 51%, compared to 44.5% in the U.S.
• Debt to disposable income for the UK consumer is 164%, compared to about 138% for the U.S. consumer.

You may not be too impressed with these numbers. But keep in mind, since 1996 UK housing prices have tripled, whereas U.S. housing prices only doubled. And if you believe as I do in reversion to the mean, i.e. that prices sooner or later come back to a natural historical path; you can see why the UK is much more exposed to a downturn in housing than the U.S.

As the chart below overwhelmingly reflects, the UK housing price downturn is now well under way and beginning to accelerate.


June marked the eighth consecutive month in a row that housing prices have fallen. And year-over-year prices are down 6.3%. That's miniscule considering how far prices have risen in this cycle.

"The latest data on the housing market are undeniably alarming," said Howard Archer, chief European economist at Global Insight in London, who expects prices to fall 12 percent this year and next.

"The marked deterioration in sentiment over the housing market also heightens the risk that house prices will fall sharply over the next couple of years," according to the International Herald Tribune.

But what if prominent economists are wrong?

Given that UK consumers are straining under the weight of debt, which is leading to a soaring number of personal bankruptcies — a 30% increase year-over-year through March 2008 — I think a 12 percent price fall forecast for UK housing in 2009 is grossly underestimated.

And on the institutional side of the fence, things are just as bad or worse. UK housing stocks trading on the London Exchange have been decimated, and some are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. One of the biggest market players, Taylor Wimpey, saw its stock plunge 55% on Wednesday after the company revealed it will need a cash infusion to stay afloat.

Late last year, the UK government stepped in to save one of the country's biggest mortgage lenders — Northern Rock. I expect we will see more rescues like this in 2009. But the exposure is tremendous, and there will likely be major bankruptcies that will only add to the deteriorating sentiment toward the sector.

While housing will no doubt continue to be the Achilles' heel for both currencies, I believe that the UK economy is much more exposed to falling housing prices than the U.S. economy.

Bottom Line: I continue to a long-term bear on the British pound and believe any rallies in the currency represent an opportunity to enter short at a better price. Selling the pound against the dollar with a 10-12 month time frame may present one of the best opportunities in the currency markets today.

Now, as I have previously stated, the medium term direction of the Thai Baht is down (I cited the inflation risks, now in the mainstream press), so whether the Baht will depriciate faster that Sterling remains a moot point. They may simply fall off the cliff at the same time and at the same pace, leaving the comparative value unchanged.

Interesting times still lie ahead, methinks...

Originally Posted by Begbie

Thanks Andrew, guess I'll hold off sending money back to the UK for a week or so.

Did you hold back until now? By my calculations you would be 20% up.