The Stock Exchange of Thailand's (SET) trading value surpassed 100 billion baht per day for the second consecutive month in January, boosted by investors' confidence in global economic recovery, domestic Covid-19 control measures and stimulus packages.
Soraphol Tulayasathien, the regulator's senior executive vice-president, said the SET Index closed at 1,466.98 points at the end of January, up 1.2% from the previous month.
This is higher than other regional exchanges' average, with the MSCI Asean Index down 1.9%.
He said many sectors have performed better than the SET Index, such as agriculture and food, technology, financial, consumer and industrial.
In addition, the market capitalisation of the Market for Alternative Investment (MAI) rose by 5.9%, with the MAI Index rising continuously to close at 356.33 points, the highest level in 18 months.
The combined daily average trading of the SET and MAI was 100.51 billion baht in January, up 59.6% from the same period last year. This is a record-high monthly average with liquidity exceeding 100 billion baht for the second consecutive month.
Foreign investors ranked as net sellers for the first time in three months at 10.7 billion baht, while institutional investors and brokerage firms offloaded 16 billion and 942 million baht, respectively. Retail investors were the only net buyers at 27.6 billion baht.
SET's forward and historical price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) at the end of January was 19.0 times and 26.0 times, respectively, higher than Asian stock markets' averages at 14.4 times and 22.7 times.
The SET's dividend yield at the end of last month was 2.69%, also higher than the regional average of 2.35%. Thailand Future Exchange had an average daily trading volume of 573,172 contracts, a 24.3% drop from the previous month.