|
The SET index went nowhere for the week, as it traded down 5.93 points to close at 1,494.44 on Friday, just below the key psychological resistance at 1,500.00, with the Thai baht stabilizing at around 35 baht per dollar. The index is trading in a descending wedge chart pattern and needs to break out, or face a repeat performance of last year. The
USD/THB currency pair dipped another 0.31% for the week, to close at 35.02 baht per dollar on Friday, while the U.S. dollar index declined 0.35%, to close at 98.342 on Friday, as Federal Reserve officials continued talking up a rate hike and a better-than-expected advance estimate U.S. third-quarter GDP was reported.
The National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) of Thailand said on Tuesday that the board is maintaining its 3.3% economic growth forecast for this year, and the government may not need to introduce additional stimulus measures since the existing government stimulus measures are expected to come into effect in the fourth-quarter of this year and the first-quarter of next year, according to the Bangkok Post. The Finance Ministry of Thailand reaffirmed its economic growth forecast for 2016 on Friday at 3.3%, as export performance has improved and government spending and tourism remain strong.
Shares of Airports of Thailand PCL (SET:AOT) were down 2 baht for the week, to 383.00 baht per share on Friday, despite that the Tourism and Sports Minister reported that from January to October 22 of this year, there were 26.4 million foreign arrivals, an increase of 110.82% compared to the same period last year. Foreign visitors spent 1.31 trillion baht so far this year, an increase of 15.59%, according to the Bangkok Post.
The yield of Thailand 10-year government bonds surged 3.27% for the week, to close at 2.21% on Friday. The yield spread between the Thailand 10-year bond and the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury Note, yielding at 1.849% on Friday, narrowed to 0.361 percentage points.
Shares of PTT PCL (SET:PTT) and PTT Exploration and Production PCL (SET:PTTEP) were down 0.85% and 2.34% for the week, along with crude oil prices. The WTI crude price tumbled 4.23% for the week, to close at $48.70 per barrel on Friday, while the Brent crude spot price tanked 2.41% to close at $50.67 per barrel, as OPEC is not getting closer to reaching a consensus about freezing output. According to Reuters, Ministers from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates told their Russian Energy Minister counterpart this week that they are willing to reduce peak oil output by 4%, while Iraq, Libya, Nigeria and Iran have called for an exemption because their output had been hit by wars and sanctions.
The EIA weekly U.S. oil inventory report on Wednesday showed that domestic crude supplies dropped by 0.6 million barrels to 468.2 million barrels, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, in the week ending October 21, compared to S&P Global Platts analysts’ expectations for a rise of 0.4 million barrels. The American Petroleum Institute (API) inventory data on Tuesday showed a U.S. crude inventory increase of 4.8 million barrels.
Separately, the EIA said the weekly U.S. crude oil production increased by 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) for the week ending October 21, to 8.504 million bpd. Weekly U.S. crude oil output has fallen about 11.51% 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 declined by 2 to 441, compared to 316, when the rig count hit the low on June 6, 2016. |
