Thai Shares May Tick Higher On Friday

The Thai stock market turned lower again on Thursday, one session after snapping the two-day slide in which it had dropped almost 15 points or 0.9 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now rests just above the 1,615-point plateau although it’s tipped to see mild upside again on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed, with support from technology stocks and weakness from oil companies. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and the Asian bourses are expected to follow suit.

The SET finished modestly lower on Thursday following losses from the financial shares and energy producers/

For the day, the index shed 7.14 points or 0.44 percent to finish at 1,617.65 after trading between 1,615.62 and 1,631.69. Volume was 30.571 billion shares worth 88.017 billion baht. There were 1,083 decliners and 472 gainers, with 494 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info shed 0.58 percent, while Thailand Airport added 0.37 percent, Asset World plunged 3.23 percent, Bangkok Bank lost 0.42 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical dropped 0.87 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods retreated 0.92 percent, Gulf sank 0.74 percent, Krung Thai Bank declined 0.90 percent, PTT Oil & Retail skidded 0.80 percent, PTT surrendered 0.61 percent, PTT Exploration and Production fell 0.41 percent, PTT Global Chemical tanked 2.07 percent, SCG Packaging gained 0.43 percent, Siam Commercial Bank tumbled 1.47 percent, Siam Concrete slid 0.95 percent, TTB Bank plunged 1.71 percent and Bangkok Asset Management, Bangkok Expressway, BTS Group, Kasikornbank and Krung Thai Card were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is wildly inconsistent as the major averages opened slightly higher on Thursday but then went off on their own different directions. The NASDAQ stayed positive, the Dow stayed negative and the S&P 500 hugged the line and finished barely in the red.

The Dow dropped 210.22 points or 0.62 percent to finish at 33,823.45, while the NASDAQ spiked 121.67 points or 0.87 percent to end at 14,161.35 and the S&P 500 eased 1.84 points or 0.04 percent to close at 4,221.86.

The mixed performance on Wall Street came as traders moved out of cyclicals and into tech stocks after Wednesday’s announcement from the Federal Reserve, which saw the central bank move up its timeline for raising interest rates.

In economic news, the Labor Department noted an unexpected uptick in initial jobless claims last week. Also, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia showed Philadelphia-area manufacturing activity expanded at a slightly slower rate in June.

Crude oil prices tumbled on Thursday, weighed down by a stronger dollar after Federal Reserve officials projected that interest rates might be hiked by 2023. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for July ended down by $1.11 or 1.5 percent at $71.04 a barrel.