Thai Stock Market May Take Further Damage On Friday

The Thai stock market has moved lower in consecutive trading days, stumbling more than 20 points or 1.3 percent in that span. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,440-point plateau and it’s tipped to see continued consolidation on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is fairly flat ahead of key U.S. employment data later in the day. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses are expected to open in similar fashion.

The SET finished modestly lower on Thursday following losses among the food, consumer, finance, industrial, property and service sectors.

For the day, the index lost 8.67 point or 0.60 percent to finish at 1,442.73 after trading between 1,440.31 and 1,452.00. Volume was 15.261 billion shares worth 57.549 billion baht. There were 423 decliners and 105 gainers, with 137 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info jumped 1.89 percent, while Thailand Airport gained 0.39 percent, Banpu surrendered 2.16 percent, Bangkok Bank fell 0.33 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical plunged 2.48 percent, B. Grimm stumbled 1.68 percent, BTS Group weakened 1.33 percent, CP All Public lost 0.77 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods added 0.41 percent, Energy Absolute surrendered 2.25 percent, Gulf rallied 2.21 percent, Kasikornbank retreated 1.32 percent, Krung Thai Bank tumbled 1.90 percent, Krung Thai Card skidded 1.04 percent, PTT Oil & Retail slumped 1.16 percent, PTT Exploration and Production dipped 0.37 percent, PTT Global Chemical tanked 2.52 percent, Siam Commercial Bank shed 0.45 percent, Siam Concrete slid 0.41 percent, Thai Oil sank 0.99 percent, True Corporation dropped 0.89 percent and TTB Bank, SCG Packaging, Asset World, PTT and Bangkok Expressway were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened lower on Thursday and largely remained in the red throughout the day, closing with modest losses.

The Dow dropped 184.93 points or 0.44 percent to finish at 42,011.59, while the NASDAQ eased 6.65 points or 0.04 percent to close at 17,918.47 and the S&P 500 fell 9.60 points or 0.17 percent to end at 5,699.94.

The lack of direction on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the Labor Department’s highly anticipated monthly jobs report on Friday.

The data could impact the outlook for the U.S. economy as well as expectations regarding how aggressively the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates.

Traders also kept an eye on developments in the Middle East, where an escalating conflict has contributed to a sharp increase by the price of crude oil.

Oil prices moved up sharply on Thursday thanks to tensions in the Middle East, with the war between Israel and Iran raising concerns about supply disruptions. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for November ended up $3.61 or 5.2 percent at $73.71 a barrel.