Little Movement Seen For Thai Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market has finished lower in two of three trading days since the end of the four-day winning streak in which it had surged almost 50 points or 4.6 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,115-point plateau and it's likely to remain rangebound again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is cloudy on lingering concerns over U.S. trade policy. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The SET finished modestly lower on Tuesday following losses from the food, consumer, finance, industrial, property, service and technology sectors.

For the day, the index shed 7.35 points or 0.65 percent to finish at 1,115.65 after trading between 1,110.16 and 1,121.37. Volume was 8.203 billion shares worth 29.535 billion baht. There were 252 decliners and 189 gainers, with 205 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info slumped 1.05 percent, while Thailand Airport retreated 0.82 percent, Banpu slid 0.48 percent, Bangkok Bank fell 0.35 percent, Bangkok Expressway surged 3.86 percent, BTS Group gained 0.58 percent, CP All Public slipped 0.55 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods dropped 0.92 percent, Energy Absolute rallied 2.61 percent, Gulf stumbled 1.85 percent, Krung Thai Bank tanked 2.26 percent, PTT Oil & Retail advanced 0.90 percent, PTT Exploration and Production jumped 1.40 percent, PTT Global Chemical plunged 3.33 percent, SCG Packaging skidded 1.18 percent, Siam Commercial Bank sank 0.84 percent, Siam Concrete lost 0.58 percent, True Corporation tumbled 1.77 percent, TTB Bank shed 0.53 percent and Kasikornbank, B. Grimm, PTT, Thai Oil, Krung Thai Card, Bangkok Dusit Medical and Asset World were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages spent most of Tuesday's trade hugging the line, finally ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow shed 165.60 points or 0.37 percent to finish at 44,240.76, while the NASDAQ rose 5.95 points or 0.03 percent to close at 20,418.46 and the S&P 500 dipped 4.46 points or 0.07 percent to end at 6,225.52.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as investors were reluctant to make significant moves amid lingering uncertainty about President Donald Trump's erratic trade policies.

A lack of major U.S. economic data may also have kept some traders on the sidelines ahead of the release of the minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting on Wednesday.

The Fed minutes may shed light on the outlook for interest rates ahead of the central bank's next meeting on July 29-30. CME Group's FedWatch Tool is currently indicating a 95.3 percent chance the Fed will leave rates unchanged this month.

Crude oil prices moved higher on Tuesday on concerns over disruptions to the oil supply lines due to Houthi attacks. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery closed up by $0.40 at $68.33 per barrel.