Thai Stock Market Due For Consolidation On Monday

The Thai stock market has moved higher in three straight sessions, gathering almost 30 points or 2 percent along the way. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,385-point plateau although it’s likely to see some profit taking on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft, with energy and technology stocks likely to be under pressure. The European markets were mixed and little changed and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The SET finished sharply higher on Friday following gains from the food, consumption, finance, industrial, property, resource, service and technology sectors.

For the day, the index climbed 14.26 points or 1.04 percent to finish at 1,386.42 after trading between 1,373.05 and 1,386.58. Volume was 17.363 billion shares worth 40.125 billion baht. There were 347 gainers and 142 decliners, with 142 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Thailand Airport rallied 2.61 percent, while Asset World jumped 1.59 percent, Banpu surged 3.67 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical sank 0.85 percent, B. Grimm accelerated 3.64 percent, BTS Group perked 0.99 percent, CP All Public dropped 0.86 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods added 0.54 percent, Energy Absolute skyrocketed 3.65 percent, Gulf surged 4.07 percent, Kasikornbank strengthened 1.23 percent, Krung Thai Bank rallied 1.27 percent, Krung Thai Card gained 0.57 percent, PTT Oil & Retail climbed 1.12 percent, PTT retreated 1.45 percent, PTT Exploration and Production increased 0.66 percent, PTT Global Chemical spiked 2.03 percent, SCG Packaging soared 2.73 percent, Siam Commercial Bank advanced 0.89 percent, Siam Concrete improved 1.51 percent, Thai Oil gathered 1.32 percent, True Corporation rose 0.67 percent, TTB Bank collected 0.54 percent and Bangkok Bank, Advanced Info and Bangkok Expressway were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened higher on Friday but fell into the red shortly thereafter, closing under water.

The Dow dropped 68.71 points or 0.18 percent to finish at 38.722.69, while the NASDAQ tumbled 188.29 points or 1.16 percent to end at 16,085.11 and the S&P 500 sank 33.67 points or 0.65 percent to close at 5,123.69. For the week, the NASDAQ slumped 1.2 percent, the Dow lost 0.9 percent and the S&P eased 0.3 percent.

The early strength on Wall Street came as the Labor Department’s closely watched monthly jobs report added to optimism about the outlook for interest rates. While job growth in February came in much stronger than expected, the report also showed notable downward revisions to job growth in the two previous months.

The downward revisions and the unexpected increase in the unemployment rate combined with a slowdown in the annual rate of wage growth has added to optimism the Federal Reserve will begin lowering interest rates in June.

Buying interest remained somewhat subdued, however, as traders seemed reluctant to continue buying stocks ahead of the release of key inflation data this week that could have a more profound impact on the outlook for rates.

Oil prices fell on Friday amid uncertainty about the outlook for demand, particularly from China after data showed a drop in the country’s oil imports in the first two months of the year. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April shed $0.92 or 1.2 percent at $78.01 a barrel. WTI crude futures sank 2.5 percent in the week.