Major stock markets in Asia traded lower on Friday, following a plummet in Wall Street last night and a drop in oil prices from their high in 2014.
Thailand’s SET Index opened at 1,650.94 points, decreased 6.02 points or 0.36%.
As of 10:30 local time in Thailand, Nikkei declined 1.42%, SSEC dipped 0.82%, Hang Seng Index slipped 0.63%, ASX 200 fell 1.97% while IDX Composite rose 0.35%.
Asia Wealth Securities (AWS) expected the SET today to move in the range of 1,640-1,670 points and continue to be under pressure from concerns about the Fed’s interest rate hike that is expected to signal more clearly at the FOMC meeting next week (25-26 Jan). Recently, the U.S. president Joe Biden has encouraged Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to begin implementing a tighter fiscal policy and reduce financial easing measures by specifying the important mission of the Fed is inflation control, increasing pressure on Biden’s rating that continued to decline and may affect the U.S. midterm elections at the end of 2022.
For investment strategies, AWS weighed domestic play stocks that benefit from recovering domestic purchasing power and the results of the main CCSA meeting that AWS viewed as a positive sentiment on tourism-related stocks, including AOT, AAV, BA, ERW, MINT, CENTEL and SHR. For the decreasing crude oil price, it will affect the share price in the group of oil plays that AWS viewed as a timing for a new investment round from the tight supply situation that still exists.
