Lower Open Anticipated For Thai Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market has finished lower in two of three trading days since the end of the two-day winning streak in which it had improved more than 20 points or 1.6 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,340-point plateau and it's looking at another soft start again on Tuesday. The global forecast for the Asian markets is weak, with oil and technology stocks expected to lead the way lower. The European and U.S. markets were mostly lower and the Asian bourses figure to follow suit. The SET finished modestly lower on Monday as losses from the consumer, property, resource, service and technology sectors were mitigated by support from the food, financial and industrial companies. For the day, the index dropped 13.13 points or 0.97 percent to finish at 1,340.94 after trading between 1,340.54 and 1,354.74. Volume was 6.938 billion shares worth 30.721 billion baht. There were 305 decliners and 174 gainers, with 187 stocks finishing unchanged. Among the actives, Thailand Airport tumbled 1.33 percent, while Asset World retreated 1.28 percent, Banpu added 0.94 percent, Bangkok Bank advanced 0.98 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical skidded 0.85 percent, Bangkok Expressway spiked 2.26 percent, B. Grimm declined 1.27 percent, BTS Group increased 0.81 percent, CP All Public gained 0.45 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods soared 3.60 percent, Energy Absolute skyrocketed 12.93 percent, Gulf stumbled 1.65 percent, Kasikornbank collected 0.32 percent, Krung Thai Bank rallied 2.21 percent, Krung Thai Card shed 0.49 percent, PTT Oil & Retail sank 0.86 percent, PTT Exploration and Production lost 0.82 percent, PTT Global Chemical dropped 0.89 percent, Siam Commercial Bank improved 0.81 percent, Siam Concrete slumped 0.96 percent, TTB Bank climbed 1.07 percent and SCG Packaging, Advanced Info, True Corporation, PTT and Thai Oil were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is pretty awful as the major averages opened under water on Monday. The Dow managed to climb into positive territory, but the NASDAQ and S&P 500 finished with heavy losses.

The Dow advanced 289.33 points or 0.65 percent to finish at 44,713.58, while the NASDAQ plummeted 612.47 points or 3.07 percent to close at 19,341.83 and the S&P 500 sank 88.96 points or 1.46 percent to end at 6,012.28.

The sell-off On Wall Street came amid substantial weakness among technology stocks, with AI darling and sector leader Nvidia (NVDA) leading the way lower. The plunge by Nvidia comes after Chinese startup DeepSeek's AI Assistant overtook rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application available on Apple's App Store in the United States.

Concerns about the outlook for interest rates also weighed on Wall Street ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting this week.

While the Fed is almost universally expected to leave interest rates unchanged, traders are likely to pay close attention to the accompanying statement for clues about the outlook for rates. Recent economic data has led to concerns about the Fed leaving rates on hold for a prolonged period.

Oil prices fell sharply on Monday amid concerns about tariff threats and uncertainty about U.S. trade policy. Also, weak manufacturing data from China has raised concerns about the outlook for demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March closed down $1.49 or 2 percent at $73.17 a barrel.