Steady Start Eyed For Thai Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market has finished lower in four straight sessions, slipping more than 20 points or 1.5 percent along the way. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,430-point plateau although it may find traction on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement ahead of the FOMC meeting later this week. The European and U.S. markets mostly saw slight weakness and the Asian markets figure to follow that lead.

The SET finished modestly lower on Friday as losses from the food, property, resource, service and technology sectors were mitigated by support from the industrial and financial shares.

For the day, the index shed 8.22 points or 0.57 percent to finish at 1,431.67 after trading between 1,429.68 and 1,438.67. Volume was 8.815 billion shares worth 40.368 billion baht. There were 281 decliners and 188 gainers, with 192 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Thailand Airport slid 0.41 percent, while Asset World tanked 2.19 percent, Banpu and BTS Group both soared 3.51 percent, Bangkok Bank shed 0.66 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical retreated 1.61 percent, Bangkok Expressway surged 3.40 percent, B. Grimm sank 0.96 percent, CP All Public gained 0.40 percent, Energy Absolute crashed 23.05 percent, Gulf stumbled 2.00 percent, Kasikornbank advanced 0.96 percent, Krung Thai Bank collected 0.47 percent, Krung Thai Card added 0.52 percent, PTT Exploration and Production lost 0.81 percent, SCG Packaging fell 0.48 percent, Siam Commercial Bank improved 0.85 percent, Siam Concrete slumped 1.14 percent, Thai Oil plunged 2.68 percent, True Corporation dropped 0.84 percent, TTB Bank skidded 1.07 percent and Charoen Pokphand Foods, PTT Global Chemical, Advanced Info, PTT Oil & Retail and PTT were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street suggests mild downside as the major averages opened higher on Friday but quickly slipped under water and largely stayed that way, although the NASDAQ broke back into positive territory later in the day.

The Dow shed 86.04 points or 0.20 percent to finish at 43,828.06, while the NASDAQ rose 23.92 points or 0.12 percent to close at 19,926.72 and the S&P 500 eased 0.16 points or 0.00 percent to end at 6,051.09.

For the week, the NASDAQ rose 0.3 percent, the S&P 500 slid 0.6 percent and the narrower Dow tumbled 1.8 percent.

The early strength on Wall Street partly reflected a positive reaction to earnings news from Broadcom (AVGO), which reported better than expected fiscal fourth quarter earnings and said it expects continued strong demand for its custom AI chips.

Buying interest waned shortly after the start of trading, however, as traders looked ahead to this week's Federal Reserve meeting. The Fed is widely expected to lower interest rates by another 25 basis points, although traders are likely to pay close attention to the accompanying statement for clues about future rate cuts.

Oil futures settled higher on Friday as supply worries resurfaced following additional sanctions on Iran and Russia. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January closed up $1.27 or about 1.8 percent at $71.29 a barrel.