No Help Yet For Thai Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Thai Stock market has finished lower in four straight sessions, sinking almost 35 points or 2.2 percent along the way. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just beneath the 1,485-point plateau and it's looking at another soft start again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is weak on surging oil prices and weakness among technology stocks. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets also figure to open to the downside.

The SET finished modestly lower on Tuesday following losses from the food, consumer, industrial, property and technology sectors.

For the day, the index shed 5.73 points or 0.38 percent to finish at 1,483.56 after trading between 1,481.95 and 1,501.35. Volume was 9.451 billion shares worth 55.549 billion baht. There were 302 decliners and 169 gainers, with 187 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info gained 0.57 percent, while Thailand Airport jumped 1.97 percent, Asset World climbed 0.95 percent, Banpu plunged 3.48 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical dipped 0.54 percent, Bangkok Expressway was down 0.94 percent, B. Grimm tanked 2.17 percent, CP All Public fell 0.57 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods skidded 1.05 percent, Energy Absolute contracted 1.52 percent, Gulf rose 0.43 percent, Kasikornbank shed 0.51 percent, Krung Thai Bank collected 0.77 percent, PTT Oil & Retail lost 0.81 percent, PTT vaulted 1.37 percent, PTT Exploration and Production perked 0.33 percent, PTT Global Chemical added 0.64 percent, SCG Packaging tumbled 1.61 percent, Siam Commercial Bank slipped 0.38 percent, Siam Concrete declined 1.30 percent, Thai Oil plummeted 4.28 percent, True Corporation sank 0.70 percent, TTB Bank advanced 0.89 percent and Bangkok Bank, Krung Thai Card and BTS Group were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened lower but trended higher as the session progressed, with the Dow finally peaking into positive territory by the day's end.

The Dow rose 56.09 points or 0.11 percent to finish at 49,760.56, while the NASDAQ sank 185.92 points or 0.71 percent to end at 26,088.20 and the S&P 500 dipped 11.88 points or 0.16 percent to close at 7,400.96.

An extended surge by the price of crude oil contributed to the early sell-off on Wall Street, with U.S. crude oil futures soaring by more than 4 percent and jumping back above $100 a barrel.

The continued increase by the price of crude oil comes as the U.S. and Iran struggle to reach an agreement to end the war and reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz.

The weakness on Wall Street also came following the release of a report from the Labor Department showing the fastest annual rate of consumer price growth since May 2023 - making any rate cuts in the near future extremely unlikely.