Thai shares under influence of ECB move, Yingluck's impeachment
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The Thai stock market is in a swinging mode today, being pushed and pulled by the European Central Bank's massive quantitative easing and the impeachment of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
At 2.20pm, the SET index gained 14.23 points or 0.91 per cent to 1,574.57 points. In the morning session, it moved between 1,569.52 and 1,583.92 points.
Wall Street jumped 1.5 percentand European shares climbed to a seven-year high on Thursday. All Asian markets went up on Friday after the ECB launched a landmark bond-buying stimulus programme that buoyed investors'risk appetite, drove bonds higher and kept the euro pinned near11-year lows.
After holding interest rates at their all-time low once again at its first policy meeting of the year, the ECB said it would buy 60 billion euros (US$69 billion) in private and public sector bonds per month from March until the end of September next year. The amount is above market expectation of no more than 50 billion euros.
Yet, limiting the increase in Thai shares is the National Legislative Assembly's voting for the impeachment of Yingluck, for her negligence in the controversial rice-pledging scheme. The NLA voted 190 against 18 for the impeachment.
"Political movements should be closely monitored to see whether this would heat up the Thai politics again. That will be negative to the investment sentiment in the Thai stock market," said Asset Plus Securities in its research note.
