1) Thai stock market overview
Thailand’s SET Index closed at 1,537.59 points, decreased 19.33 points or 1.24% with a trading value of 45 billion baht. The analyst stated that the decline in the Thai stock market today was due to a selloff in DELTA for entering the Market Surveillance Measures and also lacking new positive drivers. The selloff in big-cap stocks, especially the finance sector also weighed on the index. Meanwhile, uncertainties in Fed’s monetary policy also increased and pressured Asian markets.
2) Singapore’s Grab Holdings plans biggest job cuts
Grab Holdings, a multinational technology company headquartered in Singapore, is preparing another round of layoff, reported Bloomberg on Tuesday.
Citing people close to the matter, Bloomberg wrote that this will be the biggest round of job cuts since the pandemic in 2020 that saw the company cutting 5% of its workforce or about 360 employees due to the impact from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bloomberg noted that the cut could be as soon as this week.
Last September, Grab stated that it had no plans for a mass layoffs despite a slowdown in the market. However, the CEO told staff in December that the company was holding off most hiring, pay rises for senior managers, and cutting travel and expense budgets.
The company had nearly 12,000 employees at the end of 2022.
3) Asian May bonds see highest foreign inflows in two years
May saw the largest monthly foreign inflows into Asian bonds in about two years on the expectation that the Federal Reserve will let off on its policy of hawking stance.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that foreign investors purchased a net of $10,1 billion in bonds from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, and Thailand, their largest monthly purchase since June 2021.
The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged at the meeting last week, but signaled that there could be two small hikes by the end of this year.
There was a foreign inflow of $400 million into Thailand’s bonds last month, while $652 million and $500 million respectively entered the bond markets of Malaysia and Indonesia.
The Thai Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday that during the first five months of this year, 274 foreign investors submitted for investment promotion, totaling THB45.4 billion baht, a decrease of 18% from the same period last year.
