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The SET index traded down 1.42% for the week, to close at 1,477.61 on Friday, just below the key technical resistance at 1,478.40, or 23.6% Fibonacci
retracement, despite a “flash crash” on Wednesday that sent the SET index tumbling over 6% right at the opening of the afternoon session, to an intraday low of 1,343.13, before bouncing back to close at 1,406.18. The
USD/THB currency pair also spiked to the 35.90 baht per dollar level at 7:30 AM Wednesday
UTC. The Thai market turmoil continued the following day, as the SET index took a 3.51% nosedive to a Thursday low of 1,356.79, before reversing course at 15:40 PM Bangkok time to close 0.47% higher at 1,412.82.
The SET index surged 4.59% on Friday, trimming its losses for the week, after the Royal Household Bureau announced after the market close on Thursday that His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej passed away and Prime Minister Prayuth
Chan-Ocha said the king had anointed a successor in accordance with the constitution, putting His Royal Highness Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn in line to ascend the throne, according to Bloomberg.
The USD/THB currency pair jumped 1.29% for the week, to close at 35.34 baht per dollar on Friday, along with the U.S. dollar index, which also surged another 1.39% , to close at 97.997 on Friday, as Federal Reserve officials continued talking up a rate hike. One should expect a continuation of market volatility, as a Bloomberg survey showed that the baht is expected to weaken to 35.40 baht per dollar by year-end, while the probability of a 25 basis point rate hike at the FOMC meeting on December 14 stands at 64%, based on the CME Group 30-day Fed Fund futures prices as of October 14.
The yield of Thailand 10-year government bonds inched 0.45% lower for the week, to close at 2.23% on Friday. The yield spread between the Thailand 10-year bond and the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury Note, yielding at 1.805% on Friday, narrowed to 0.425 percentage points.
Shares of PTT PCL (SET:PTT) and PTT Exploration and Production PCL (SET:PTTEP) were up 2.32% and down 0.6%, respectively for the week, as crude oil traded near the $50 per barrel resistance level. The WTI crude price jumped 1.89% for the week to close at $50.75 per barrel, while the Brent crude spot price inched up 0.62% to close at $52.00 per barrel, despite Igor Sechin, Chief Executive Officer of Russia's state-controlled integrated oil company Rosneft, said his company will not cap oil production as part of a possible agreement between Russia and OPEC. According to Reuters, Sechin said he doubted that some OPEC countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, would cut their output either.
The EIA weekly U.S. oil inventory report on Thursday, due to the Columbus Day holiday, showed that domestic crude supplies rose by 4.9 million barrels to 474 million barrels, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, in the week ending October 7, compared to S&P Global Platts analysts’ expectations for a rise of 250,000 barrels. The American Petroleum Institute (API) inventory data on Wednesday showed a U.S. crude inventory increase of 2.7 million barrels.
Separately, the EIA said the weekly U.S. crude oil production decreased by 17,000 barrels per day (bpd) for the week ending October 7, to 8.450 million bpd. Weekly U.S. crude oil output has fallen about 12.07% from the peak level of 9.61 million bpd during the week ending June 5, 2015. Houston-based oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. said on Friday that the U.S. oil rig count rose by 4 to 432, compared to 316, when the rig count hit the low on June 6, 2016. |
