Newsfeed

Given the likely steady rise in cost of living, price-fixing measures could be extended for two to three months from the end of November 2014 until January-February 2015, Department of Internal Trade director-general Jintana Chaiyawannakarn.

The proposed measure extension will be forwarded to Commerce Minister General Chatchai Sarikalya for consideration.

According to Jintana, the department will take measures to oversee products, whose prices could go up, after receiving instructions from Chatchai. The products include pork and eggs.

Gold prices ‘stable’

Major gold traders believe gold prices this month will be quite stable, moving in the Bt18,900-Bt20,200 per baht-weight range, pointing to the US central bank’s monetary policies in the past seven years for the volatility in the gold market, beginning with the first interest-rate cut in September 2007.

According to Kamonthan Pornpaisarnvijit, the Gold Research Centre’s director, the gold sentiment index in September dropped to 42.61 points, down by 13.47 points from last month. An index figure lower than 50 points negatively reflected the direction of the monthly gold prices, which concerns both gold investors and gold traders, amid the pressure from the major central banks’ monetary policies, the Middle-East conflict and the easing of tension in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the baht was still affected by external factors after the US dollar strengthened in response to the European Central Bank’s easing of its monetary policies.

Gold traders expect the world gold prices to move in the maximum range of US$1,300-$1,330 per ounce and the minimum range of $1,249-$1,250 per ounce, while the local gold price (at 95.5 per cent purity) is expected to be in the maximum range of Bt19,600-Bt20,200 and minimum range of Bt18,900-19,000 per baht-weight.

MCOT signal failure

Five terrestrial-based digital TV channels yesterday had blank screens after their network provider, MCOT, failed to transmit signals from its main broadcasting towers in Bangkok and Chiang Mai to digital TV receivers.

A source at MCOT’s engineering department said that there were some technical problems so people who watched TV programmes of MCOT high-definition, MCOT Family, Thairath TV HD, Springnews TV and Voice TV could not access the content via DVB-T2 set-top boxes.

The blackout of those digital TV channels lasted more than eight hours. However, viewers watching those TV channels via cable and satellite TV were not affected.

SET Index sees jump

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Index closed at 1,561.63 as of August 31, up 20.24 per cent from the end of the 2013 and 3.94 per cent from July 2014 with total trade value averaging Bt50.97 billion a day, up 27.42 per cent from the same period of last year, according to an SET report yesterday.

Meanwhile, net buying by foreign investors totalled Bt2.65 million at the end of August this year, the second consecutive month of net buying this year. Listed companies raised Bt4.16 billion from the market in August, a drop of 43.16 per cent from the previous month. Of the total, Bt1.8 billion was raised by three newly listed companies, while the rest were from already-listed firms, the release said.