Thai stock exchange pulls 30 minute circuit breaker

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) had pulled a 30 minute “circuit breaker” to suspend trade between 9:59 and 10:29am leading to a fall at 11am, when the SET fell by 78.95 points, or 7.08%, to 1,035.96. Foreign investors made net sales of 1.929 billion baht in the stock market and 13.646 billion in the bond market. Most global stock prices also dropped resulting from uncertainty among investors following the Covid-19 outbreak, which has heated up recently in Europe and the US.

A stock analyst at Krungsri Securities said, “the SET had pulled the circuit breaker due to foreign investors selling off their stocks after the US President Donald Trump had suspended travel from European nations for 30 days”.

“We advise investors who cannot take risks to hold cash and monitor the situation, while those who can take risks should buy stocks for short-term profit-taking, especially stocks whose price has fallen sharply and pay high dividends regularly.”

The analyst recommended three groups of stocks for investors…

● Defensive stocks which pay high dividends, such as ADVANC, INTUCH, and TTW.
● Retail stocks, which gained buying power after the government returned the electricity metre insurance for a total amount of Bt30 billion, such as CPALL, HMPRO, and BJC.
● Financial stocks, which gain benefit from the interest rate cut, such as MTC, SAWAD, and KTC.

SOURCE: nationthailand.com