Major South East Asian stocks down

Major Southeast Asian bourses ended lower on Friday, with investors quickly cashing in gains in heavyweight financial stocks, and foreign money continued to flow out of the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand this week. However, a late rebound brought Indonesia's Jakarta Composite Index back into positive terrain on the day, with a rise of 0.12 percent, in falling volume of 0.65 times its average 30-day volume, similar to most markets in the region.
-- Indonesian stocks lead losses
-- Singapore developers fall
"Selling pressure was still present in the market due to concern about higher inflation. Despite inflation concerns, the consumer sector is on the rise," said Jakarta-based John Teja, director of Ciptadana Securities. Indonesia led in terms of weekly outflows with $404 million, with Thailand seeing outflows of $310 million to Thursday, according to Thomson Reuters data. Indonesia fell 1.72 percent on the week, the worst in the region, ahead of a 1.68 percent loss in the Philippines. Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand drifted down on the week, reversing last week's gains.
Globally, sentiment improved after a bond auction in Spain received strong demand, and the euro was on track to post its best weekly performance against the dollar in 20 months. "Looking ahead to next week, the situation in the eurozone should be more stable, and the market should turn its focus back to US economic conditions," said Rakphong Chaisuparakul of KGI Securities in Bangkok. "On the flows, we believe foreign activity would remain mixed as investors seem to now favour North Asia over Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines," he said.
MSCI ASEAN, covering Southeast Asia, underperformed MSCI Asia ex Japan by 110 basis points last week, largely driven by a 6 percent fall in MSCI Indonesia, according to Morgan Stanley. Indonesia, a darling of emerging market investors last year, has surged almost threefold over the past two years and set a record high just last week. Malaysia and the Philippines, which hit record highs late last year, are struggling to recover. In Jakarta, PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur, the world's top noodle maker, gained 3.8 percent and Indonesian pharmaceutical firm PT Kalbe Farma rose 2.5 percent.
In Bangkok, banks pulled back after gains early in the week when they raised their interest rates following a Bank of Thailand rate increase. Top lender Bangkok Bank and number four Siam Commercial Bank each fell over 1 percent on Friday. Indonesia's central bank said it expected inflationary pressures to pick up this year and it may need to raise its benchmark rate. Thailand's finance minister said the Thai rate rise was likely to affect economic growth this year. In Singapore, trade was relatively active at 1.4 times its 30-day average. Property developers and banks fell after the government announced new measures to cool home prices. CapitaLand, Southeast Asia's biggest developer, dropped 3.4 percent while DBS Group Holdings eased 0.8 percent.