Thai Shares Due For Support On Wednesday

(RTTNews) - The Thai stock market has finished lower in three straight sessions, sinking more than 20 points or 1.4 percent in that span. The Stock Exchange of Thailand now sits just above the 1,550-point plateau although it may stop the bleeding on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is flat to slightly higher, thanks to a dip in oil prices. The European markets were slightly lower and the U.S. bourses were mostly higher and the Asian markets figure to follow with mild upside.

The SET finished sharply lower on Tuesday following losses among the food, finance, industrial, property, service and technology sectors.

For the day, the index dropped 16.78 points or 1.07 percent to finish at the daily low of 1,554.94 after trading as high as 1,574.97. Volume was 10.864 billion shares worth 60.719 billion baht. There were 297 decliners and 142 gainers, with 203 stocks finishing unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is cautiously optimistic as the major averages opened mixed on Tuesday and generally trended higher before finishing mixed.

The Dow jumped 529.85 points or 1.02 percent to finish at 52,495.88, while the NASDAQ eased 6.07 points or 0.02 percent to close at 26,424.82 and the S&P 500 added 21.84 points or 0.28 percent to end at 7,712.57.

The advance by the Dow partly reflected a sharp increase by shares of 3M (MMM) after the Scotch-tape and Post-it maker reported better than expected third quarter earnings and raised its full-year profit forecast.

Dow components Amgen (AMGN), Merck (MRK) and UnitedHealth (UNH) also posted significant gains on the day.

Buying interest was also generated by a drop in the price of crude oil on reports that Qatar and Pakistan are pushing for a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran. West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery was down $1.76 or 1.82 percent at $101.84 per barrel.