Thai Stock Market May Head South Again On Friday

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market on Thursday ended the two-day slide in which it had slumped more than 30 points or 2.4 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now rests just above the 1,140-point plateau although it may tick lower again on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests caution ahead of key U.S. employment data later in the day. The European markets were mixed and the U.S. bourses were slightly lower and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The SET finished modestly higher on Thursday following gains from the food, finance, industrial, resource and technology sectors.

For the day, the index improved 8.61 points or 0.76 percent to finish at 1,140.63 after trading between 1,135.10 and 1,145.01. Volume was 8.203 billion shares worth 33.207 billion baht. There were 275 gainers and 176 decliners, with 201 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Thailand Airport crashed 3.05 percent, while Asset World expanded 3.66 percent, Banpu retreated 1.31 percent, Bangkok Bank strengthened 1.43 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical dropped 0.94 percent, B. Grimm gained 1.02 percent, BTS Group was up 0.87 percent, CP All Public lost 0.52 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods soared 4.00 percent, Energy Absolute surged 6.57 percent, Gulf gathered 1.14 percent, Kasikornbank spiked 2.62 percent, Krung Thai Bank improved 1.39 percent, Krung Thai Card accelerated 2.01 percent, PTT Oil & Retail sank 0.84 percent, PTT perked 1.69 percent, PTT Exploration and Production rose 2.05 percent, PTT Global Chemical added 0.50 percent, Siam Commercial Bank advanced 0.86 percent, Siam Concrete increased 1.56 percent, Thai Oil stumbled 2.52 percent, True Corporation climbed 2.42 percent, TTB Bank collected 1.57 percent and SCG Packaging, Advanced Info and Bangkok Expressway were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened mixed but spent most of the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before finishing modestly under water.

The Dow dropped 108.00 points or 0.25 percent to finish at 42,319.74, while the NASDAQ stumbled 162.04 points or 0.83 percent to close at 19,298.45 and the S&P 500 sank 31.51 points or 0.53 percent to end at 5,939.30.

Stocks saw some strength earlier in the day after President Donald Trump confirmed in a post on Truth Social that he had an approximately 90-minute phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

However, traders seemed reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the release of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report on Friday.

The data could have a significant impact on the outlook for the economy following Wednesday's weaker than expected reports on private sector employment and service sector activity.

In the bond market, treasuries pulled into negative territory after seeing early strength. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, rose 2.9 basis points to 4.394 percent, after hitting a nearly one-month intraday low of 4.318 percent.