Thai Stock Market Likely To Open Under Pressure

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market has moved lower in consecutive trading days, stumbling more than 15 points or 1.1 percent along the way. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just beneath the 1,350-point plateau and it's expected to extend its losses on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is negative on concerns over treasury yields and the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian markets are expected to follow suit.

The SET finished modestly lower on Wednesday following losses from the financial, industrial, property, resource, service and technology sectors.

For the day, the index dropped 12.87 points or 0.94 percent to finish at the daily low of 1,349.83 after peaking at 1,363.96. Volume was 10.705 billion shares worth 44.190 billion baht. There were 322 decliners and 163 gainers, with 179 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info slumped 1.45 percent, while Thailand Airport was down 1.93 percent, Asset World declined 1.53 percent, Banpu tumbled 1.79 percent, Bangkok Bank fell 0.36 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical weakened 1.77 percent, BTS Group slipped 0.83 percent, CP All Public crashed 2.58 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods retreated 1.32 percent, Energy Absolute plunged 2.53 percent, Gulf stumbled 1.80 percent, Kasikornbank sank 0.75 percent, Krung Thai Bank skidded 1.17 percent, Krung Thai Card collected 0.57 percent, PTT Oil & Retail dropped 1.11 percent, PTT surrendered 0.76 percent, PTT Exploration and Production rose 0.32 percent, PTT Global Chemical plummeted 3.42 percent, Siam Concrete tanked 2.87 percent, True Corporation jumped 1.78 percent, TTB Bank lost 0.58 percent and Siam Commercial Bank, SCG Packaging and Thai Oil were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened firmly lower on Wednesday and remained in the red throughout the trading day.

The Dow plunged 411.32 points or 1.06 percent to finish at 38,441.54, while the NASDAQ slumped 99.30 points or 0.58 percent to close ta 16,920.58 and the S&P 500 sank 39.09 points or 0.74 percent to end at 5,266.95.

The weakness on Wall Street came amid a continued increase by treasury yields, with the yield on the benchmark ten-year note climbing to its highest levels in nearly a month.

The continued advance by treasury yields has added to recent concerns about the outlook for interest rates ahead of key inflation data later in the week.

Crude oil prices fell on Wednesday on concerns about the outlook for interest rates, and the likely adverse impact high borrowing costs will have on energy demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for July sank $0.60 at $79.23 a barrel.

Closer to home, Thailand is scheduled to release April data for imports, exports and trade balance later today. In March, imports rose 5.6 percent and exports slumped 10.9 percent for a trade deficit of $1.160 billion.