Thai Shares May Take Further Damage On Wednesday

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market has finished lower in two straight sessions, tumbling almost 40 points or 3.2 percent in that span. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,205-point plateau and it may extend its losses on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is negative, with weakness expected from the technology and oil companies. The European and U.S. markets were mostly lower and the Asian bourses figure to follow that lead.

The SET finished sharply lower on Tuesday with damage in all sectors, especially the food, consumer, finance, industrial, property, resource, service and technology companies.

For the day, the index plunged 29.46 points or 2.38 percent to finish at the daily low of 1,206.39 after trading as high as 1,231.48. Volume was 9.575 billion shares worth 50.245 billion baht. There were 461 decliners and 75 gainers, with 128 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info crashed 3.15 percent, while Thailand Airport gained 0.60 percent, Asset World fell 0.64 percent, Banpu slumped 2.71 percent, Bangkok Bank dropped 1.63 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical surrendered 2.14 percent, Bangkok Expressway tumbled 3.91 percent, B. Grimm plummeted 4.72 percent, BTS Group lost 4.10 percent, CP All Public declined 4.83 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods retreated 2.61 percent, Energy Absolute cratered 7.35 percent, Gulf dropped 2.91 percent, Kasikornbank stumbled 1.90 percent, Krung Thai Bank surrendered 2.12 percent, Krung Thai Card sank 0.98 percent, PTT Oil & Retail tanked 4.20 percent, PTT Exploration and Production crashed 8.00 percent, PTT Global Chemical plunged 4.32 percent, SCG Packaging cratered 4.20 percent, Siam Commercial Bank declined 1.59 percent, Siam Concrete tumbled 2.82 percent, Thai Oil stumbled 2.91 percent, True Corporation plummeted 4.17 percent, TTB Bank skidded 1.02 percent and PTT was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is mostly soft as the major averages opened mixed on Tuesday and finished in similar fashion.

The Dow gained 159.95 points or 0.37 percent to finish at 43,621.16, while the NASDAQ plummeted 260.54 points or 1.35 percent to close at 19,026.39 and the S&P 500 sank 28.00 points or 0.47 percent to end at 5,955.25.

Significant weakness among technology stocks weighed on Wall Street, as reflected the notable slump by the tech-heavy NASDAQ.

Traders continued to express concerns about the sustainability of the artificial intelligence trade ahead of the release of AI darling Nvidia's (NVDA) fourth quarter results on Wednesday.

The selling pressure also spurred concerns about the outlook for the economy after a Conference Board report showing a significant deterioration by U.S. consumer confidence in February.

Oil futures settled sharply lower on Tuesday as concerns about demand and oversupply in the market weighed and pushed the commodity's prices to the lowest level in about 11 weeks. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April settled lower by $1.77 or at $68.93 a barrel.

Closer to home, The Thai central bank will wrap up its monetary policy meeting today and then announce its decision on interest rates; the bank is expected to keep its benchmark lending rate unchanged at 2.25 percent.