SET moves to prevent panic sell-offs

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET )is looking at measures to put the brakes on panic selling sparked by unsubstantiated rumours, SET president Patareeya Benjapolchai said on Wednesday.

Rumours about His Majesty the King's health led to the deepest decline in the benchmark stock index in two months on Oct 14.

Mrs Patareeya said the Thai bourse will have talks with the Finance Ministry, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Bank of Thailand (BoT), and other agencies, on how best to prevent panic selling based on false information.

The first measure would be a 30-minute halt to trading, or a circuit breaker, when the SET index went down five per cent from trading on the previous day, to allow time for officials to trace the source of rumours.

Until now, the circuit breaker has been activated only when the index plunged 10 per cent. 

"For now, we are looking at ways to address this type of panic sell-off. We will have to be more stringent and  temporarily suspend trading once the index is down five per cent because we cannot afford to wait,'' she said.

"Dealing with rumours is a sensitive issue and finding witnesses to verify what happened is difficult," the SET chief admitted.

The information on the recent panic sell-off had been sent to the SEC for a deep investigation.she said.

The SET at present was sluggish, in line with other stock markets in the region.