Healthy foreign fund flows keep asian markets humming | Bangkok Post: business

MARKET MONITOR

Recap: The SET was very active last week as foreign fund flows into Asia picked up and hopes improved for a settlement of Greek debt problems. As well, sentiment was buoyed by good January economic figures for the US, China and Germany, and the likelihood of record-low US interest rates for another two years.

The SET index moved in a range of 1,072.71 to 1,099.62 points and closed on Friday at 1,098.95, up 2.11% from a week earlier, with total trade worth 136.02 billion baht. Foreign investors were net buyers of 7.63 billion baht worth of shares. Local institutions were net sellers of 1.22 billion, brokers 973.34 million, and domestic retail investors 5.44 billion baht.

Big movers: Large-cap stocks including energy and banks were active. PTTGC closed up 2.7% on the week at 67.25 baht, while Banpu, despite the XD sign, gained 2.7% to 612 baht. Banks gained on hopes that deposit protection fees may not increase as much as expected. BAY closed up 7.2% at 23.70 baht, KBANK gained 1.2% to 128 baht, and KTB rose 3.3% to 15.60 baht.