Soft Start Called For Thai Stock Market

Ahead of Monday’s holiday for King Maha’s birthday, the Thai stock market had ended the four-day slide in which it had stumbled more than 35 points or 2.8 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now rests just above the 1,305-point plateau although it may hand back those gains on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is a holding pattern ahead of Wednesday’s FOMC rate decision and announcement. The European and U.S. markets ended mixed and flat and the Asian bourses are likely to follow suit.

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

For the day, the index climbed 15.63 points or 1.21 percent to finish at the daily high of 1,307.21 after trading as low as 1,290.48. Volume was 7.880 billion shares worth 40.186 billion baht. There were 374 gainers and 125 decliners, with 153 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info strengthened 1.79 percent, while Thailand Airport was up 1.32 percent, Asset World advanced 1.08 percent, Banpu increased 1.22 percent, Bangkok Bank jumped 2.26 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical gained 0.95 percent, Bangkok Expressway dropped 1.86 percent, B. Grimm gathered 0.45 percent, BTS Group sank 2.34 percent, CP All Public fell 0.44 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods and TTB Bank both accelerated 3.03 percent, Energy Absolute plummeted 3.30 percent, Gulf surged 5.00 percent, Kasikornbank collected 0.79 percent, Krung Thai Bank shed 0.56 percent, Krung Thai Card improved 2.58 percent, PTT Oil & Retail added 0.64 percent, PTT Exploration and Production climbed 2.08 percent, PTT Global Chemical soared 3.81 percent, SCG Packaging added 0.88 percent, Siam Commercial Bank rallied 2.49 percent, Siam Concrete perked 0.44 percent, Thai Oil tumbled 1.96 percent, True Corporation slumped 1.68 percent and PTT was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened mixed on Monday and hugged the line for most of the day, finally ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow shed 49.41 points or 0.12 percent to finish at 40,539.93, while the NASDAQ added 12.32 points or 0.07 percent to close at 17,370.20 and the S&P 500 rose 4.44 points or 0.08 percent to end at 5,463.54.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy meeting this week.

While the Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged, traders will be looking to the accompanying statement for additional clues about a possible rate cut in September.

Investors are also waiting for corporate earnings this week from companies that include Microsoft (MSFT), Meta Platforms (META), Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN).

Crude oil prices fell to a seven-week low on Monday amid concerns about the outlook for demand from China, and ahead of Thursday’s OPEC meeting. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for September ended down $1.35 or 1.8 percent at $75.81 a barrel.