Major stock markets in Asia traded mostly lower on Wednesday as the U.S. on January 4 reported more than one million Covid-19 cases in a single day.
On January 5, 2022, Thailand’s SET Index opened at 1,673.76 points, increased 3.48 points or 0.21%.
As of 10:15 local time in Thailand, Nikkei rose 0.04%, SSEC fell 0.34%, Hang Seng Index slipped 0.38%, ASX 200 dropped 0.25% and IDX Composite dipped 0.019%.
Yesterday, the U.S. reported a record number of new Covid-19 cases on Monday, marking over one million new infections.
According to the data of Johns Hopkins University, a total of 1,082,549 new coronavirus cases were reported as Omicron spread through the entire country. The new daily number brings the total number of confirmed cases in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic to 56,189,547 with 827,748 deaths across the country.
Mr. Chaiyot Jiwangkul, Assistant Director of Krungsri Securities (KSS), through “Kaohoon Jor Talad Program” on January 5, 2022, stated that he believed the foreign fund flow would continue to support the Thai market, but the SET Index could correct in today’s session due to the discovery of a new Covid-19 B.1.640.2 variant in France that is reportedly more contagious than the omicron variant. However, if the strain is not as deadly as the delta variant, Mr. Jiwangkul expected the stock market to continue its uptrend and the January Effect has a high tendency to occur in the Thai market this year.
As for the investment strategy, Mr. Jiwangkul recommended the banking (KBANK and TTB), energy (IVL) and retail (HMPRO and CPALL) sector while emphasizing that the retail sector will remain laggard this year due to lower tourist arrivals, which will be an opportunity for investors who are looking for laggard stocks.
