Mr. Pakorn Peetathawatchai, the President of Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) said after meeting with the Prime Minister that there’ll be a hearing on the extension of SET trading session after the completion of its feasibility study. He pointed out that the system is capable and ready to extend the session.
Currently, the Thai capital market has a total trading session of four and a half hours, while the European have eight and a half hours, the commonwealth and ex-British colonies have six or a half hours, and the Chinese indices only have four hours.
There’ll also be a feasibility study to consider who is really benefiting from this extension. Whether it’ll cover the most of Asian and European sessions, or should the morning, afternoon or the noon break session be cut or extended in which president noted that there will be pros and cons to the decision.
Head of SET also had a meeting with the PM on other matters, such as the standard improvement of SET after recent scandals of More Return Pcl. (SET: MORE) and Stark Corporation Pcl. (SET: STARK), the new S-curve/ sustainability/ green/ well being-related investment products that would attract foreign investment, and how small businesses and investors can take advantage of the Thai capital market.
On the other hand, opinions of Thai capital market participants were mixed. The president of Investment Analysts Association (IAA) said that the current trading hours are reasonable as the opening in the morning after other markets in Asia could give an insight to the market situation, but that could also pressure the Thai stock market as well.
Meanwhile, fund managers and brokerage firms complained about the need for more manpower and cost, as both NAV calculation, pre- and after-market workloads will be extended too.
Meanwhile, some investors didn’t mind since the force of the market is the main driver, not the session, while niche investors agreed with the extension of their opportunities, since many products, especially derivatives that link to foreign stocks (DR and DW) or indices that are moving and trading digitally around the clock.
