Thai Shares May Take Further Damage On Monday

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market has finished lower in three straight sessions, sinking more than 30 points or 2.3 percent along the way. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just beneath the 1,315-point plateau and it's looking at another soft start again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on concerns over U.S. tariffs that were put in place over the weekend. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The SET finished sharply lower on Friday following losses from the food, consumer, finance, industrial, property, resource, services and technology sectors.

For the day, the index stumbled 21.14 points or 1.58 percent to finish at 1,314.50 after trading between 1,310.72 and 1,337.80. Volume was 9.303 billion shares worth 53.421 billion share worth 53.421 billion baht. There were 393 decliners and 101 gainers, with 165 stocks finishing unchanged.

Among the actives, Advanced Info sank 0.70 percent, while Thailand Airport was down 1.78 percent, Asset World lost 0.63 percent, Banpu dropped 0.99 percent, Bangkok Bank retreated 1.28 percent, Bangkok Dusit Medical skidded 1.67 percent, Bangkok Expressway contracted 2.17 percent, B. Grimm weakened 1.30 percent, BTS Group dipped 0.81 percent, CP All Public crashed 7.96 percent, Charoen Pokphand Foods plunged 3.51 percent, Energy Absolute surrendered 2.52 percent, Gulf cratered 3.35 percent, Kasikornbank shed 0.62 percent, Krung Thai Bank tanked 2.14 percent, PTT Oil & Retail slumped 1.69 percent, PTT jumped 1.61 percent, PTT Exploration and Production rallied 2.41 percent, PTT Global Chemical tumbled 1.83 percent, SCG Packaging plummeted 5.17 percent, Siam Commercial Bank fell 0.40 percent, Siam Concrete declined 1.60 percent, True Corporation stumbled 1.68 percent, TTB Bank collected 1.02 percent and Krung Thai Card and Thai Oil were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened higher on Friday and stayed that way for much of the day before a late slide saw them all finish in the red.

The Dow tumbled 337.44 points or 0.75 percent to finish at 44.544.66, while the NASDAQ slumped 54.26 points or 0.28 percent to close at 19,627.44 and the S&P 500 sank 30.64 points or 0.50 percent to end at 6,040.53. For the week, the Dow rose 0.3 percent, the S&P 500 dropped 1.0 percent and the NASDAQ lost 1.6 percent.

Stocks plummeted in afternoon trading after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed President Donald Trump's threatened tariffs will be levied against major U.S. trading partners beginning the following day.

Leavitt said the Trump administration will be implementing 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada as well as a 10 percent tariff on China.

The news the tariffs will be implemented led to concerns about higher inflation keeping the Federal Reserve on hold for longer.

Oil futures settled lower Friday amid uncertainty about implementation of Trump's tariff plans on Canada and Mexico, while a stronger dollar also weighed. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for March fell $0.20 at $72.53 a barrel.