Bargain Hunting May Lift Thai Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market has finished lower in four straight sessions, tumbling almost 80 points or 5.7 percent in that span. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,330-point plateau although it's overdue for support on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets in negative, with continued pressure likely on the technology shares. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The SET finished sharply lower on Friday with damage across the board, especially the food, finance, resource, service and technology sectors.

For the day, the index plunged 28.94 points or 2.13 percent to finish at 1,332.08 after trading between 1,330.24 and 1,343.32. Volume was 17.861 billion shares worth 40.114 billion baht. There were 522 decliners and 54 gainers, with 87 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info fell 0.76 percent, while Thailand Airport crashed 3.82 percent, Asset World plunged 4.05 percent, Banpu decreased 2.75 percent, Bangkok Bank tumbled 3.48 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical eased 0.89 percent, Bangkok Expressway tanked 3.01 percent, B. Grimm plummeted 4.47 percent, BTS Group plunged 4.10 percent, CP All Public gave up 1.35 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods retreated 2.22 percent, Energy Absolute stumbled 3.20 percent, Gulf surrendered 3.07 percent, Kasikornbank dropped 1.59 percent, Krung Thai Bank weakened 1.84 percent, Krung Thai Card declined 2.84 percent, PTT Oil & Retail lost 2.73 percent, PTT skidded 2.19 percent, PTT Exploration and Production gained 0.63 percent, PTT Global Chemical slid 0.64 percent, SCG Packaging shed 1.57 percent, Siam Commercial Bank sank 1.90 percent, Siam Concrete tanked 3.20 percent, Thai Oil was down 1.29 percent, True Corporation dipped 0.64 percent and TTB Bank rallied 2.30 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is conflicted as the Dow opened higher on Friday and stayed that way, while the S&P and NASDAQ spent the entire session under water.

The Dow rallied 211.00 points or 0.56 percent to finish at 37,986.40, while the NASDAQ tumbled 319.49 points or 2.05 percent to end at 15,282.01 and the S&P 500 sank 43.89 points or 0.88 percent to close at 4,967.23.

For the week, the NASDAQ plummeted 5.5 percent, the S&P tumbled 3.1 percent and the Dow rose 0.1 percent.

The steep drop by the NASDAQ reflected heavy selling among shares of Netflix (NFLX) and AI darling Nvidia (NVDA). Reflecting the weakness in the sector, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dove by 4.1 percent to its lowest closing level since early February.

Banking stocks turned in a strong performance, driving the KBW Bank Index up by 2.9 percent. Interest rate-sensitive utilities stocks also moved notably higher amid a pullback by treasury yields, resulting in a 1.8 percent jump by the Dow Jones Utility Average.

Oil prices moved higher on Friday as geopolitical tensions rose following Israel's retaliatory attack on Iran. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May ended higher by $0.41 at $83.14 a barrel, although WTI crude futures shed about 3 percent in the week.