The Thai stock market bucked the regional trend after foreign investors cashed out US$257 million in the first quarter.
Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, India and South Korea attracted offshore funds with net inflows of $436 million, $1.07 billion, $12 million, $4.23 billion, $5.82 billion and $2.62 billion, respectively, according to a Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) statement.
However, foreign investors returned last month to buy Thai shares worth 2.39 billion baht.
At the end of March, the SET's market capitalisation was 14.1 trillion baht, up 1.88% from the end of 2014, while the Market for Alternative Investment (MAI) amounted to 398 billion, down 4.14%.
The forward price-to-earnings ratio of the SET was at 14.77 times, while the MAI's was 21.03 times.
The combined average trading value of the SET and the MAI in March was 48.6 billion baht, falling 18.3% from a month earlier. For the first quarter, the figure surged by 76.4% from the previous quarter to 54.4 billion baht.
Kittikun Tanaratpattanakit, a senior data analyst at Morningstar Research, said local funds' net asset value in the first quarter jumped by 16% on year to 3.82 trillion baht.
Nine new foreign investment funds (FIFs) attracted 12.6 billion baht, raising FIFs' net asset value to 21.9 billion, up 25% from the end of last year.
The top designations for FIF investment in the first quarter were China with inflows of 7.3 billion baht, followed by Japan at 2.7 billion and stocks in Asia Pacific ex-Japan at 2.02 billion. The sweetest spot for FIFs last year was Europe.
Morningstar noted that European equity funds led the way with 11.2% returns on average, followed by Japanese equity funds at 9.06%, while oil funds performed the worse with a minus 13.9% return.
Mr Kittikun said trigger funds had caught investors' eyes, with 38 new funds being launched in the first quarter.
The five most active mutual fund companies in launching trigger funds for the first quarter were Tisco Asset Management, which raised 3.63 billion baht, SCB Asset Management (SCBAM) at 3.06 billion, Thanachart Fund Management at 2.36 billion, UOB Asset Management (Thailand) (UOBAM) at 1.83 billion, and TMB Asset Management (TMBAM) at 1.11 billion.