Soft Start Anticipated For Thai Stock Market

The Thai stock market has finished lower in back-to-back sessions, plunging more than 40 points or 2.5 percent along the way. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now rests just beneath the 1,575-point plateau and it’s likely to open in the red again on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to lower on continuing fears of a financial crisis. The European markets were sharply lower and the U.S. bourses were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The SET finished sharply lower on Monday with broadly based losses, although the financials and energy producers were hit particularly hard.

For the day, the index dropped 26.58 points or 1.66 percent to finish at 1,573.07 after trading between 1,572.65 and 1,602.65. Volume was 23.313 billion shares worth 79.674 billion baht. There were 1,408 decliners and 315 gainers, with 318 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info tumbled 3.35 percent, while Thailand Airport skidded 1.09 percent, Banpu dropped 0.93 percent, Bangkok Bank retreated 3.16 percent, B. Grimm improved 0.66 percent, BTS Group plummeted 8.61 percent, CP All Public gained 0.40 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods slipped 0.46 percent, Energy Absolute sank 1.31 percent, Gulf and PTT Oil & Retail both gave away 1.46 percent, Kasikornbank plunged 5.88 percent, Krung Thai Bank stumbled 1.76 percent, Krung Thai Card surrendered 2.25 percent, PTT declined 1.63 percent, PTT Exploration and Production added 0.34 percent, PTT Global Chemical weakened 1.59 percent, SCG Packaging dove 2.39 percent, Siam Commercial Bank tanked 2.68 percent, TTB Bank slumped 1.45 percent and Thai Oil was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages spent most of Monday bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before finally ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow dropped 90.50 points or 0.28 percent to finish at 31,819.14, while the NASDAQ added 49.96 points or 0.45 percent to close at 11,188.84 and the S&P 500 dipped 5.83 points or 0.15 percent to end at 3,855.76.

The weakness that emerged on Wall Street came on continued concerns over the fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse – which triggered heavy selling, particularly in the banking sector.

Over the weekend, the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said they would “fully protect” depositors, including those with assets above the federally guaranteed $250,000 limit, but traders were not reassured.

Investors are also nervous ahead of the ECB meeting and key inflation data due out later this week.

Crude oil prices fell sharply on Monday amid worries that a U.S. banking debacle may follow last week’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures settled lower by $1.88 or 2.4 percent at $74.80 a barrel.