Thailand’s SET Index closed at 1,395.85 points, increased 7.62 points or 0.55% with a trading value of 36.7 billion baht. The analyst stated that the Thai stock market edged lower in the same direction as regional markets in the early morning, but buying pressure from DELTA boosted the index to positive territory. However, the market still had low trading volume and volatility, reflecting unstable market conditions.
The overall outlook remains wait and see for the Fed’s meeting and 3Q earnings season, as well as the conflict in the Middle East.
Evergrande dropped as much as 20% to its record low of HKD0.188 per share on Monday at a court hearing, in which the company must defend itself against creditor’s requests for liquidation.
However, the share price started to pick up as session progress on the report of a Hong Kong judge delayed the court hearing to address a winding-up petition that was filed in 2022 by Top Shine, but was put on hold due to Evergrande’s restructuring.
Reuters reported that a High Court judge pushed back the hearing from October 30 to December 4, which would be the last hearing before making a final decision on the winding up order.
Evergrande’s share price rose by 5% to HKD0.255 per share at 11:54 local time, but later closed 9% lower.
Mr. Kongkrapan Intarajang, PTTGC’s CEO and director, explained PTTGC portfolio advantage that 2023 is a bad year for global pet-chem business as the first 9-months of 2023 financial showed. However, bio-chem, recycle products, coating resins and crosslinkers from Allnex Holding GmbH, still retain a good profit despite the falling profit on oil refinery business, due to increasing crude oil cost from middle-east conflicts.
Kongkrapan said that the pet-chem business trend will recover in 2024, after it passed the lowest point in Q2 of 2023. The CEO saw the increasing demand in Q4 of 2023 from an economic recovery and China stimulus spillovers.
He cited a global pause in new pet-chem plant investments in 2023 which will limit future global supply. And when the economy recovers next year and after, the car and EV demands will rebound which will be a positive factor to PTTGC, as the limited supply can not keep up with the spiking demands.
DAOL Securities (Thailand) estimated PTTGC’s Q3 net profit at 1.4 billion baht, which is a rebound from the loss of 13.4 billion baht in Q3 of last year, and 5.6 billion loss in last quarter. The profit recovery is due to market GRM and stock gain on refinery. DAOL’s analyst set 35 baht as a target price from Price per Book Value (P/BV) at 0.55.
