1) Thai stock market overview
Thailand’s SET Index closed at 1,619.23 points, decreased 3.22 points or 0.20% with a trading value of 59 billion baht. The analyst stated that the Thai stock market moved narrowly, but traded majority in the negative territory as energy stocks edged lower following a decline in oil prices and a selloff to lower the risk ahead of US inflation announcement. The analyst expected the Thai stock market to rise if US inflation is in line or better than expected, while fund flows continued to enter the Thai stock market.
2) Covid outbreak worsens in China’s export hub, Guangdong
Covid infections are on the rise in China’s export-heavy Guangdong province’s capital, increasing fears of yet another drag on the national economy.
As of Thursday, the majority of students in eight of Guangzhou’s eleven districts began taking their courses entirely online. Greater parts of the city have issued mandatory shelter-in-place orders and closures of non-essential businesses in recent days.
Official estimates show that the national GDP grew by only 0.4% in the second quarter of this year as a result of two-month lockdown of the financial hub Shanghai and wider Covid controls. Despite a strong 3.9% expansion in GDP during the third quarter, exports unexpectedly fell in October.
The number of Covid cases in Guangdong had increased to 500 as of Wednesday, a fivefold surge in just one week. During that time, the number of infections without symptoms increased sevenfold to almost 2,500 cases.
3) Airbus expects growing demands for Aircraft in Asia as region begins to open
Top executive at Airbus on Thursday expects Asia-Pacific airlines’ need for widebody aircraft to fuel a post-pandemic recovery in demand for the larger jets as the region opens up.
According to a Bloomberg report, Anand Stanley, president of Asia-Pacific for Airbus, the world’s largest commercial aircraft manufacturer, said that the spike in demand isn’t just for replacing planes like those from Airbus’s older A330 series, but also for fleet expansion.
Following the pandemic, Asia has been slower to open its borders than the rest of the world. China, in particular, remains largely closed. However, major economic centers and tourist hotspots like Singapore and Thailand are once again reopened, and robust domestic markets like India have also fully recovered.
4) Thailand’s Oct investor confidence returns to “neutral” zone, backed by tourism recovery
Thailand’s investor confidence in October, which anticipated the market condition over the next three months, was at 108.86, up 60.5% from a month earlier, coming back to the “neutral” zone, according to the Federation of Thai Capital Market Organizations (FETCO) on Wednesday.
The rebound of tourism is seen as the most encouraging sign for investors, followed by the expectation that the US Federal Reserve will slow the pace of interest rate hikes and the local economic recovery. However, investors are most worried about the future path of inflation, Covid-19, and the Fed’s interest rate hike policies.
FETCO chairman Kobsak Pootrakool forecasts a SET Index of 1,685 by year’s end, as foreign investors continue to pour capital into Thailand’s stock market as they flee to safer markets in Southeast Asia.
