Thailand’s SET Index plunged 23.18 points or 1.36% to close the morning session at 1,678 points with a trading value of 55 billion baht. Meanwhile, major stock markets in Asia all traded lower on Thursday as investors digested the Fed’s minutes of shrinking balance sheets.
At the same time, Nikkei dropped 1.55%, SSEC fell 1.09%, Hang Seng Index decreased 1.12%, ASX200 slipped 0.60%, while IDX Composite rose 0.25%.
Yesterday, the Federal Reserve plans to shrink the balance sheet by $95 billion a month, $60 billion in treasury securities and $35 billion in mortgage-backed securities, according to meeting minutes.
Following the shrinking balance sheet, Fed’s officials were also leaning on more aggressive moves toward a policy rate hike, implying that an increase of 50bps interest rate is coming in the next meeting in early May.
