The Thai baht is tumbling

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The Thai baht is tumbling after the Bank of Thailand kept rates unchanged.

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The currency is down by 0.5% at 34.936 per dollar as of 7:44 a.m. ET.

Most economists polled expected the bank to keep its policy rate unchanged at 1.50%, according to Bloomberg.

"With Thailand's economy looking stronger than it has done for a while, there is no strong impetus for an immediate rate cut," wrote Capital Economics Asia Economist Krystal Tan in a note.

"That said, we see scope for the policy rate to be lowered back to its record low of 1.25% in the coming months," she added.

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As for the rest of the world, here's the scoreboard as of 8:01 a.m. ET:

  • The British pound is more or less unchanged at 1.3355 against the dollar, despite the fact PMI data released by Markit and the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply showed the service sector headline reading came in at 47.4 for July, down from 52.3 in June. This is the steepest month-on-month decline since PMIs began in 1996.
  • The euro is down by 0.2% at 1.1199 against the dollar, after Markit's final composite PMI figure for July came in at 52.9, an incremental uptick from June's 52.7.
  • The US dollar index is up by 0.2% at 95.25 ahead of a busy data day. ADP Employment Change will cross the wires at 8:15 a.m. ET before Markit US Services PMI and ISM nonmanufacturing are released at 9:45 a.m. and 10 a.m. ET. US crude-oil inventories are due out at 10:30 a.m. ET.
  • The Japanese yen is down by 0.2% at 101.12 per dollar.
  • Meanwhile, in cryptocurrency news, there was a massive Bitcoin heist. More than $65 million worth of bitcoin was stolen from BitFinex, a digital currency exchange in Hong Kong. Bitcoin has traded down by as much as 20% on the news to $480.

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