Major stock markets in Asia traded lower amid rising concerns of Covid-19 omicron variant after U.K. reported first death from the new variant while studies from Oxford showed that two doses of AstraZeneca or Pfizer were less effective against the new strain.
On December 14, 2021, Thailand’s SET Index opened at 1,619.25 points, decreased 6.58 points or 0.40%.
As of 10:06 local time in Thailand, Nikkei fell 0.48%, SSEC dropped 0.65%, Hang Seng Index plunged 1.20%, ASX 200 dipped 0.02% and IDX Composite slipped 0.65%.
U.K. suffered its first loss from Covid-19 omicron variant on Monday after raising the threat level from 3 to 4 over the weekend. Meanwhile, the results from the University of Oxford published on Monday showed that two doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines are less effective against omicron compared to the previous variants.
Mr. Suchet Suktae, Deputy Managing Director, Media Marketing Department of ASL Securities Co., Ltd., through “Kaohoon Jor Talad Program”, stated that the stock market should be focusing on the Fed’s meeting while the omicron would be a little hiccup and should not have plunged SET Index below 1,600 points. Mr. Suktae advised investors to monitor the Fed’s meeting as well as ECB, BoE and BoJ, seeing a downtrend for this week.
Mr. Suktae stated that if the SET Index was able to close above 1,620 points this week, the movement until the end of this year should be an uptrend to 1,680 points.
In addition, Mr. Suktae recommended SMT (S6.50/R7-7.50), (NEX S15/R17), AP (S9/R10) and DTAC (S44/R47.50).
