Thai Stock Market May Take Further Damage On Monday

The Thai stock market on Friday snapped the two-day winning streak in which it had gathered almost 10 points or 0.6 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,630-point plateau and the losses may accelerate on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is sharply negative on growing interest rate and inflation concerns. The European and U.S. markets took heavy damage and the Asian bourses are tipped to open in similar fashion.

The SET finished modestly lower on Friday following mixed performances from the financial shares and the energy producers.

For the day, the index shed 8.72 points or 0.53 percent to finish at 1,632.62 after trading between 1,631.43 and 1,640.86. Volume was 18.737 billion shares worth 59.628 billion baht. There were 1,289 decliners and 426 gainers, with 486 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info tumbled 1.89 percent, while Thailand Airport rose 0.36 percent, Banpu sank 0.76 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical dropped 0.80 percent, Bangkok Expressway climbed 1.12 percent, BTS Group slumped 0.58 percent, CP All Public fell 0.39 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods skidded 0.94 percent, Gulf jumped 1.59 percent, IRPC tanked 2.78 percent, PTT lost 0.66 percent, PTT Exploration and Production shed 0.57 percent, PTT Global Chemical plunged 3.08 percent, Siam Commercial Bank declined 1.33 percent and TTB Bank, Bangkok Bank, Kasikornbank, Krung Thai Bank, Krung Thai Card, B. Grimm, Energy Absolute and PTT Oil & Retail were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is broadly negative as the major averages opened sharply lower on Friday and remained that way throughout the session, ending with heavy losses.

The Dow plummeted 880.00 points or 2.73 percent to finish at 31,392.79, while the NASDAQ plunged 414.20 points or 3.52 percent to close at 11,340.02 and the S&P 500 tumbled 116.96 points or 2.91 percent to end at 3,900.86.

For the week, the Dow plunged 4.6 percent, the NASDAQ tanked 5.6 percent and the S&P 500 sank 5.1 percent.

The sell-off on Wall Street came after the Labor Department released a report showing consumer prices in the U.S. shot up by more than expected in the month of May, raising concerns about the outlook for interest rates.

The inflation spike is likely to convince the Federal Reserve to follow through on its plans to aggressively raise interest rates in an effort to combat inflation. The Fed will announce its latest monetary policy decision on Wednesday, with the central bank widely expected to raise interest rates by another 50 basis points.

Crude oil prices fell on Friday as the dollar surged higher after data showing a steep acceleration in U.S. inflation raised fears of more aggressive rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for July ended lower by $0.84 or 0.7 percent at $120.67 a barrel.