Rally May Stall For Thai Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Thai Stock market has moved higher in three straight sessions, adding more than 35 points or 2.5 percent along the way. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,490-point plateau although it may run out of steam on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on surging oil prices and uncertainty about the conflict in the Middle East. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The SET finished modestly higher on Wednesday following gains from the food, consumer, finance, industrial, property, resource, service and technology sectors.

For the day, the index gained 11.54 points or 0.78 percent to finish at 1,491.74 after trading between 1,475.30 and 1,492.72. Volume was 9.149 billion shares worth 57.083 billion baht. There were 334 gainers and 132 decliners, with 199 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info fell 0.29 percent, while Thailand Airport plunged 2.86 percent, Asset World jumped 1.94 percent, Banpu surged 4.55 percent, Bangkok Bank collected 0.62 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical climbed 1.10 percent, Bangkok Expressway dropped 0.94 percent, B. Grimm spiked 4.76 percent, CP All Public expanded 2.82 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods soared 4.76 percent, Energy Absolute strengthened 1.53 percent, Gulf was up 0.87 percent, Kasikornbank added 0.52 percent, Krung Thai Bank vaulted 1.54 percent, PTT Oil & Retail elevated 2.52 percent, PTT Exploration and Production rose 0.33 percent, PTT Global Chemical gained 0.67 percent, SCG Packaging rallied 2.47 percent, Siam Commercial Bank improved 0.77 percent, Siam Concrete increased 0.88 percent, Thai Oil skyrocketed 5.95 percent, True Corporation sank 0.73 percent, TTB Bank accelerated 3.60 percent and Krung Thai Card, PTT and BTS Group were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is uninspired as the major averages opened lower on Wednesday and hugged the line for most of the day, finally ending mixed.

The Dow dropped 280.12 points or 0.57 percent to finish at 48,861.81, while the NASDAQ perked 9.44 points or 0.04 percent to close at 24,673.24 and the S&P 500 eased 2.85 points or 0.04 percent to end at 7,135.95.

The lackluster performance on Wall Street came as traders were reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of earnings news after the close from big-name tech companies such as Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META) and Microsoft (MSFT).

Traders also kept an eye on the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy announcement, with the central bank announcing its widely expected decision to leave interest rates unchanged in an unusually divided vote.

Crude oil prices surged again on Wednesday as an end to the Middle East war still remains elusive, keeping the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz in place. West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery was up $6.79 or 6.79 percent at $106.72 per barrel.

Closer to home, Thailand will release March data for industrial production, current account, import, exports and trade balance later today. In February, production dipped 0.04 percent on year, while the current account surplus was $2.10 billion. Imports surged an annual 31.7 percent and exports climbed 10.6 percent for a trade surplus of $0.60 billion.