For 15 years two currencies have outperformed all others
What accounts for the consistent strength of the baht and the shekel?
THE PAST decade and a half has seen boom and bust, inflation and deflation, globalisation and trade tensions. Through such economic and political cycles you might expect currencies to go in and out of fashion. In fact the two that have strengthened the most against the dollar over this period—Thailand’s baht and Israel’s shekel—have done so consistently. They have outshone other currencies over one, five and ten years, too. What explains their popularity?
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “One-way baht”
Finance & economics December 7th 2019
- Climate change has made ESG a force in investing
- The Trump administration’s trade policies clash with each other
- Tax our tech and we’ll blacklist your bubbly
- Splits in Italy threaten to derail euro-zone reforms
- The perils and rewards of economies in rehab
- Myanmar admits foreign life insurers
- For 15 years two currencies have outperformed all others
- Created to democratise credit, P2P lenders are going after big money
From the December 7th 2019 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Finance & economics
China meets its official growth target. Not everyone is convinced
For one thing, 2024 saw the second-weakest rise in nominal GDP since the 1970s
Ethiopia gets a stockmarket. Now it just needs some firms to list
The country is no longer the most populous without a bourse
Are big cities overrated?
New economic research suggests so
Why catastrophe bonds are failing to cover disaster damage
The innovative form of insurance is reaching its limits
“The Traitors”, a reality TV show, offers a useful economics lesson
It is a finite, sequential, incomplete information game
Will Donald Trump unleash Wall Street?
Bankers have plenty of reason to be hopeful