Thai Shares May Head South Again On Tuesday

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market has finished higher in two of three trading days since the end of the two-day slide in which it had given up more than 20 points or 1.6 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,280-point plateau although it may hand back those gains on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is negative on valuation concerns, especially among technology shares. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses are expected to follow suit.

The SET finished modestly higher on Monday following gains from the consumer, finance, industrial, property, resource and technology sectors. For the day, the index added 10.81 points or 0.85 percent to finish at 1,280.07 after trading between 1,262.93 and1,282.03. Volume was 6.201 billion shares worth 33.899 billion baht. There were 292 gainers and 185 decliners, with 175 stocks finishing unchanged. Among the actives, Advanced Info expanded 1.62 percent, while Thailand Airport gathered 0.61 percent, Asset World climbed 0.99 percent, Banpu tumbled 1.74 percent, Bangkok Bank strengthened 1.61 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical slumped 1.53 percent, Bangkok Expressway was up 1.77 percent, B. Grimm soared 4.86 percent, BTS Group surged 3.82 percent, CP All Public rose 0.56 percent, Energy Absolute accelerated 2.84 percent, Gulf increased 1.81 percent, Kasikornbank jumped 1.92 percent, Krung Thai Bank advanced 0.93 percent, Krung Thai Card rallied 2.78 percent, PTT Oil & Retail sank 0.73 percent, PTT Exploration and Production gained 0.94 percent, PTT Global Chemical vaulted 1.49 percent, SCG Packaging spiked 2.42 percent, Siam Commercial Bank collected 1.57 percent, Siam Concrete improved 0.80 percent, Thai Oil skyrocketed 6.34 percent, True Corporation dropped 0.86 percent, TTB Bank added 0.54 percent and Charoen Pokphand Foods and PTT were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages spent the first half of Monday's trade relatively flat before tumbling in the afternoon, finishing near daily lows.

The Dow tumbled 557.24 points or 1.18 percent to finish at 46,590.24, while the NASDAQ dropped 192.51 points or 0.84 percent to close at 22,708.07 and the S&P 500 sank 61.70 points or 0.92 percent to end at 6,672.41.

The weakness on Wall Street came as valuation concerns resurfaced ahead of the release of quarterly results from Nvidia (NVDA) after the markets close on Wednesday.

Traders were also looking ahead to the release of U.S. economic data that was delayed due to the government shutdown. While the reports will be backward looking, the data could still impact the outlook for interest rates ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting in December.

Crude oil prices edged lower on Tuesday as long-term oversupply concerns of a supply-demand mismatch continue to linger. West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery dipped $0.09 or 0.13 percent at $60.01 per barrel.