Lower Open Anticipated For Thai Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market on Tuesday wrote a finish to the two-day slide in which it had slipped almost 8 points or 0.5 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just beneath the 1,625-point plateau although it may tick lower again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed with little change ahead of key economic events that are likely to affect the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and flat and the Asian bourses figure to follow suit.

The SET finished modestly higher on Tuesday following gains from the financial shares and energy producers.

For the day, the index added 7.48 points or 0.48 percent to finish at 1,624.39 after trading between 1,613.87 and 1,625.67. Volume was 16.184 billion shares worth 57.772 billion baht. There were 861 gainers and 722 decliners, with 586 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info advanced 0.80 percent, while Thailand Airport added 0.68 percent, Asset World sank 0.80 percent, Banpu strengthened 1.57 percent, Bangkok Bank collected 0.69 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical rallied 2.59 percent, Bangkok Expressway gained 0.59 percent, B. Grimm retreated 1.33 percent, BTS Group jumped 1.85 percent, CP All Public gathered 1.60 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods improved 0.85 percent, Energy Absolute dipped 0.26 percent, IRPC increased 1.31 percent, Kasikornbank accelerated 1.39 percent, PTT Oil & Retail rose 0.41 percent, PTT Exploration and Production soared 2.45 percent, PTT Global Chemical surged 2.66 percent, SCG Packaging perked 1.36 percent, Siam Concrete was up 0.59 percent, Thai Oil jumped 1.37 percent, True Corporation lost 0.44 percent, TTB Bank gained 0.73 percent and Gulf, Krung Thai Bank, Krung Thai Card, PTT and Siam Commercial Bank were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street suggests a mild negative bias as the major averages opened higher, tumbled mid-session but then bounced back to finish mixed and little changed.

The Dow added 3.07 points or 0.01 percent to finish at 33,852.53, while the NASDAQ lost 65.72 points or 0.59 percent to end at 10,983.78 and the S&P 500 dipped 6.31 points or 0.16 percent to close at 3,957.63.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came amid lingering uncertainty about the situation in China following widespread protests over the country's Covid restrictions.

Traders may also have been reluctant to make significant moves ahead of remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell later today, which may offer additional clues about the outlook for interest rates. Jobless data follows on Friday.

In economic news, the Conference Board released a report showing a modest decrease in U.S. consumer confidence in November.

Crude oil futures settled higher Tuesday, extending gains from the previous session on hopes that OPEC may trim production to support prices later this week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended higher by $$0.96 or 1.2 percent at $78.20 a barrel.

Closer to home, Thailand will release October results for industrial production, current account, retail sales and its coincident index later this morning. In September, industrial output rose 3.36 percent on year, while the current account surplus was $0.6 billion and retail sales spiked an annual 22.01 percent. The coincident index score was 123.70.

Also, the central bank in Thailand will wrap up its monetary policy meeting and then announce its decision on interest rates; the central bank is widely expected to hike its benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points, to 1.25 percent from 1.00 percent.