Thai Bourse Tipped To Remain Rangebound On Monday

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market has moved higher in two of three trading days since the end of the two-day slide in which it had slumped almost 15 points or 1 percent. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,330-point plateau although it's likely to head south again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is negative as Friday's U.S. jobs report fueled uncertainty about the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets saw modest losses and the Asian bourses figure to follow suit.

The SET finished slightly higher on Friday following gains from the food, consumption, finance, resource and technology sectors.

For the day, the index added 4.33 points or 0.33 percent to finish at 1,332.74 after trading between 1,325.95 and 1,334.12. Volume was 11.556 billion shares worth 40.330 billion baht. There were 278 gainers and 197 decliners, with 175 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info accelerated 1.44 percent, while Asset World fell 0.55 percent, Bangkok Bank shed 0.37 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical dropped 0.91 percent, B. Grimm and Gulf both rallied 1.26 percent, BTS Group slumped 0.81 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods strengthened 1.34 percent, Energy Absolute gained 0.47 percent, Kasikornbank collected 0.39 percent, Krung Thai Bank soared 2.91 percent, PTT Oil & Retail skidded 1.15 percent, PTT improved 0.78 percent, PTT Exploration and Production rose 0.66 percent, PTT Global Chemical plunged 2.96 percent, Siam Commercial Bank lost 0.48 percent, Siam Concrete added 0.43 percent, Thai Oil jumped 1.97 percent, True Corporation sank 0.59 percent, TTB Bank climbed 1.20 percent and Krung Thai Card, SCG Packaging, Banpu, CP All Public, Thailand Airport and Bangkok Expressway were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened lower on Friday, bounced higher at midday but faded going into the close to end with mild losses.

The Dow shed 87.21 points or 0.22 percent to finish at 38,798.99, while the NASDAQ sank 39.97 points or 0.23 percent to close at 17,133.12 and the S&P 500 fell 5.97 points or 0.11 percent to end at 5,346.99.

For the week, the NASDAQ surged 2.4 percent, the S&P jumped 1.3 percent and the Dow rose 0.3 percent.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders reacted to the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report, which showed employment jumped more than expected in May but also saw an unexpected uptick in the unemployment rate.

Oil futures settled flat on Friday on concerns the Federal Reserve may hold interest rates higher for longer following the stronger than expected U.S. non-farm payroll report for May. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for July ended at $75.53 a barrel, down $0.02. WTI crude futures shed about 2 percent in the week.