Thai Stock Market Likely To Reverse Wednesday's Losses

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market on Wednesday ended the two-day winning streak in which it had picked up just 3 points or 0.2 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,385-point plateau and it's tipped to open in the green on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is broadly positive, with selling in the previous session deemed to be seriously overdone. The European and U.S. markets were up and the Asian markets figure to open in similar fashion.

The SET finished modestly lower on Wednesday following losses from the food, finance, resource and technology sectors.

For the day, the index shed 6.62 points or 0.48 percent to finish at 1,385.11 after trading between 1,378.76 and 1,386.86. Volume was 16.646 billion shares worth 36.809 billion baht. There were 286 decliners and 189 gainers, with 180 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info and CP All Public both lost 0.47 percent, while Asset World dropped 0.97 percent, Banpu sank 0.85 percent, Bangkok Bank collected 0.35 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical weakened 0.88 percent, Bangkok Expressway spiked 2.01 percent, B. Grimm slumped 0.87 percent, BTS Group improved 0.84 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods retreated 1.65 percent, Energy Absolute plunged 2.50 percent, Gulf fell 0.57 percent, Krung Thai Bank shed 0.63 percent, Krung Thai Card skidded 1.14 percent, Prime Road Power tumbled 5.00 percent, PTT Oil & Retail plummeted 3.72 percent, PTT was down 0.71 percent, PTT Exploration and Production slid 0.65 percent, PTT Global Chemical surged 3.50 percent, SCG Packaging declined 1.59 percent, Siam Commercial Bank added 0.49 percent, Thai Oil rallied 1.35 percent, True Corporation advanced 0.79 percent and TTB Bank, Kasikornbank, Siam Concrete and Thailand Airport were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened higher on Wednesday and largely remained that way, ending near session highs.

The Dow jumped 151.52 points or 0.40 percent to finish at 38,424.27, while the NASDAQ rallied 203.55 points or 1.30 percent to end at 15,859.15 and the S&P 500 advanced 47.45 points or 0.96 percent to close at 5,000.62.

The rebound on Wall Street reflected bargain hunting, with traders seeing Tuesday's sharp pullback as a buying opportunity amid ongoing optimism about the outlook for the markets.

While Tuesday's hotter-than-expected inflation data further pushed back interest rate cut hopes, signs of continued strength in the economy are still expected to benefit the markets long term.

The Federal Reserve is also still likely to begin lower interest rates sometime in the coming months, even if traders have to wait until June.

Oil futures settled lower on Wednesday, snapping a seven-day winning streak after data showed a big increase in crude inventories in the U.S. last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March ended down $1.23 or about 1.6 percent at $76.64 a barrel.