Little Movement Seen For Thai Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market headed south again on Tuesday, one day after snapping the two-day slide in which it had fallen more than 5 points or 0.3 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just beneath the 1,535-point plateau and it's likely to remain stuck in neutral again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft, with profit taking expected ahead of key jobs data from the United States later in the week. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The SET finished modestly lower on Tuesday as losses from the energy, property and food stocks were mitigated by support from the industrials.

For the day, the index dropped 6.16 points or 0.40 percent to finish at 1,534.81 after trading between 1,531.30 and 1,545.55.

Among the actives, Thailand Airport perked 0.35 percent, while Asset World plunged 3.53 percent, Bangkok Bank lost 0.61 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical advanced 0.88 percent, B. Grimm declined 1.30 percent, BTS Group plummeted 5.92 percent, CP All Public rose 0.40 percent, Energy Absolute surrendered 2.67 percent, Gulf skidded 1.02 percent, Kasikornbank tumbled 1.89 percent, PTT Oil & Retail slumped 1.46 percent, PTT sank 0.81 percent, PTT Exploration and Production lost 0.69 percent, SCG Packaging shed 0.62 percent, Siam Concrete tanked 2.11 percent, Thai Oil stumbled 1.66 percent, True Corporation retreated 1.46 percent, TTB Bank collected 1.27 percent and PTT Global Chemical, Charoen Pokphand Foods, Krung Thai Bank, Krung Thai Card, Siam Commercial Bank, Advanced Info, Bangkok Expressway and Banpu were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is not encouraging as the major averages opened higher on Tuesday but started to trend lower as the day progressed, with the Dow finishing in the red.

The Dow shed 50.56 points or 0.15 percent to finish at 33,042.78, while the NASDAQ rose 41.74 points or 0.32 percent to close at 13,017.43 and the S&P 500 perked 0.07 points or 0.00 percent to end at 4,205.52.

The early strength on Wall Street materialized on the weekend's news that an agreement had been reached to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a disastrous default by the U.S. government.

Much of that had already been priced in, however, and stocks faded ahead of Friday's jobs report amid concerns about further interest rate hikes.

In economic news, the Conference Board said consumer confidence in the U.S. saw a modest decrease from an upwardly revised level in May.

Crude oil prices fell sharply on Tuesday, weighed down by doubts about China's economic recovery and uncertainty over whether the Congress will pass the debt deal this week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for July ended down $3.21 or 4.4 percent at $69.46 a barrel.

Closer to home, the central bank in Thailand will wrap up its monetary policy meeting later today and announce its decision on interest rates; the central bank is expected to hike its benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points, to 2.00 percent from 1.75 percent.

Thailand also will see April numbers for industrial production, current account, imports, exports and trade balance. Industrial production is expected to slip 2.00 percent on year after falling 4.56 percent in March. The current account surplus in March was $4.80 billion, while imports were down 5.7 percent on year and exports slumped 5.8 percent for a trade surplus of $4.30 billion.