Lower Open Anticipated For Thai Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market on Wednesday ended the two-day winning streak in which it had climbed more than a dozen points or 1 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just beneath the 1,375-point plateau and it's expected to open in the red again on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is uninspired thanks to uncertainty over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were slightly higher and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The SET finished slightly lower on Wednesday as losses from the service, resources and property sectors were mitigated by support from the industrial stocks.

For the day, the index dipped 3.04 points or 0.22 percent to finish at 1,373.33 after trading between 1,372.86 and 1,379.04. Volume was 12.883 billion baht worth 42.288 billion baht. There were 238 decliners and 226 gainers, with 190 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info retreated 1.44 percent, while Thailand Airport weakened 0.76 percent, Asset World dropped 0.92 percent, Banpu slumped 0.90 percent, Bangkok Bank rose 0.36 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical skidded 0.85 percent, Bangkok Expressway tanked 1.81 percent, BTS Group plunged 1.63 percent, CP All Public declined 1.29 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods shed 0.49 percent, Energy Absolute and Siam Concrete both sank 0.80 percent, Gulf increased 0.60 percent, Kasikornbank collected 0.38 percent, Krung Thai Card tumbled 1.72 percent, PTT Exploration and Production lost 0.65 percent, PTT Global Chemical gained 0.69 percent, SCG Packaging improved 0.78 percent, Siam Commercial Bank added 0.47 percent, Thai Oil stumbled 1.86 percent, True Corporation surged 2.94 percent and TTB Bank, Krung Thai Bank, B. Grimm, PTT Oil & Retail and PTT were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened lower but ultimately wound up mixed and little changed.

The Dow added 172.13 points or 0.44 percent to finish at 39,056.39, while the NASDAQ sank 29.80 points or 0.18 percent to close at 16,302.76 and the S&P 500 eased 0.03 points or 0.00 percent to end at 5,187.67.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came amid lingering uncertainty about the outlook for interest rates following Tuesday's remarks by Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari.

Kashkari suggested interest rates may need to remain at current levels for an extended period and said he couldn't rule out another rate increase.

The Federal Reserve is still widely expected to lower rates sometime in the third quarter, however, with CME Group's FedWatch Tool currently indicating an 83.5 percent chance rates will be lower by September.

Oil futures settled higher on Wednesday after data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed crude inventories rose last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June ended higher by $0.61 or 0.78 percent at $78.99 per barrel.