Recap: Global shares continued their march towards record highs yesterday as progress in vaccine rollouts and the prospect of a large US stimulus are expected to lead a faster global economic recovery.
The SET index moved in a range of 1,456.45 and 1,500.17 points this week before closing yesterday at 1,496.61, up 2.02% from the previous week, in daily turnover averaging 78.31 billion baht.
Institutional investors were net buyers of 4.49 billion baht. Retail investors bought 3.98 billion and brokers purchased 525.14 million baht. Foreign investors were net sellers of 8.99 billion baht worth of shares.
Newsmakers: The US economy is expected to expand more rapidly in 2021 than forecast last July, but it will take years for output to reach its full potential and employment to return to its pre-pandemic peak, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It said GDP expansion is likely to average 2.6% a year through 2025.
- Britain has formally applied to join a Pacific free trade bloc, just a month after leaving the EU single market. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) represents a market of half a billion people and roughly 13.5% of the global economy. It represents 11 Pacific Rim nations including Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico and Vietnam.
- The European Union has tightened its rules for visitors from outside the bloc, specifying that they would only be allowed in freely from countries with very few coronavirus cases and almost none of the more transmissible variants.
- Myanmar's generals have shut down Facebook until tomorrow as part of their drive to consolidate control after a surgical coup on Monday. Former state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, meanwhile, has been ordered detained for 15 days -- it is not clear where -- on a charge of illegally importing walkie-talkies. The US formally declared the military takeover a coup and vowed further penalties for the generals behind the putsch.
- Jeff Bezos says he plans to give up his role as chief executive of Amazon later this year, as the tech and e-commerce giant reported a surge in profit and revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020, helped by pandemic-driven ordering.
- Thai Beverage Plc yesterday announced plans to sell a 20% stake in BeerCo, its regional beer business, via a Singapore listing, in what is set to be the largest IPO in the city-state in nearly a decade, possibly raising up to US$2 billion.
- The Bank of Thailand is poised to lower its 3.2% growth forecast for the country this year given increasing downside risks stemming from the persistent Covid-19 outbreak. The central bank on Wednesday kept its benchmark interest rate at 0.5% to support the recovery.
- Thailand's household debt, already at a record 86.6% of GDP, is expected to rise further as a fresh Covid outbreak curbs incomes, weighing on consumer spending and heightening financial stability.
- Transport delays and stepped-up border checks by the new coup regime in Myanmar are expected to result in about 50 million baht a day in forgone revenue for Thai businesses in the short term, say analysts.
- The political turbulence in Myanmar has caused SET-listed Amata Corp to halt work indefinitely on the 140-million-baht first phase of its Yangon Amata Smart and Eco City complex. It fears many foreign investors will be voting with their wallets against Myanmar's generals over the coming months.
- Thailand is unlikely to see a speculative market frenzy similar to the GameStop episode that gripped Wall Street, as local regulators keep a tighter grip on market volatility, says SET president Pakorn Peetathawatchai. That includes stricter rules on short-selling and a lack of single-stock option products.
- Trading volume of silver online futures surpassed 4,000 contracts a day in February, the highest since it began trading on the Thailand Futures Exchange (TFEX) last November, after global retail investors pushed silver prices to an eight-year high.
- The SET will no longer provide online debt instrument trading on the Thailand Bond Exchange (TBX), effective from March 1, after almost 20 years of service. The vast majority of individual investors hold bonds through mutual funds or financial institutions, rendering the TBX superfluous.
- PTT Oil and Retail Business (OR) received 530,000 subscriptions for OR shares from retail investors and has priced its IPO at 18 baht per share. The 10-day subscription period was "one of the largest fundraising rounds in Thai stock history", said OR chief executive Jiraphon Kawswat.
- PTT Global Chemical Plc (PTTGC) plans to allocate additional capital spending of 30-50 billion baht to develop more downstream petrochemical production facilities in the Eastern Economic Corridor, says chief executive Kongkrapan Intarajang.
- Nissan Asean vows to spend tens of billions of baht making Thailand an electric vehicle hub for exports worldwide, expecting up to 250 million EVs will hit the streets in Asean.
Coming up: China will release January foreign-reserve figures tomorrow, Germany will release December industrial production on Monday and trade figures on Tuesday. Australia will release January business confidence on Tuesday.
- China, Germany and the US will release January inflation data on Wednesday, Australia will release February consumer confidence data on Thursday and the US will release February initial jobless claims. Britain will release December trade figures on Friday and the euro zone will release December industrial production.
Stocks to watch: SCB Securities says tourism-related stocks in tourism industry should recover after the government rolls out mass immunisation later this year. Its picks are MINT, CENTEL, AWC and ERW.
Bualuang Securities recommends hospitality stocks that would benefit from government measures to help tourism, among them AAV, CENTEL, MINT and AWC. PLANB is poised to gain from improving domestic consumption, and banks, notably BBL, KBANK and SCB, will see better operating results after the economy starts to recover.
Technical view: Maybank Kim Eng Securities sees support at 1,480 points and resistance at 1,514. DBS Vickers Securities sees support at 1,480 and resistance at 1,510.
