Southeast Asian stocks retreat

Southeast Asian stock markets retreated on Thursday, with investors fretting over another shake-out in the commodities sector, but they were still selectively buying shares in companies with favourable earnings and dividend returns. The rout in commodities kept risk-averse investors on the sidelines and pushed down trading volume in most markets, including Malaysia and Vietnam.
Stocks in Singapore and Thailand ended a three-day winning streak to end more than 1 percent lower, while others posted smaller losses. The energy-driven Thai SET index closed at the day's low as energy shares followed oil prices down after the International Energy Agency lowered its forecast for global demand this year.
Equities traders see foreign inflows slowing because of the volatility in commodities and the effect of Greece's debt problems. "Going forward, fund flows should still be directed by the US dollar and commodities. I believe the sell-off today was not a rush for the exit but something of a reduction in risk after rallies," said Pichai Lertsupongkij, head of Thanachart Securities investment advisory business in Bangkok.
Fund flows were mixed on Thursday, with the Philippines reporting modest outflows for a fifth session and Indonesia and Malaysia seeing small inflows, according to Thomson Reuters data and stock exchanges. Asian share markets tumbled on Thursday after a second big sell-off in commodities in less than a week. Asian stocks ex-Japan were down 2.2 percent by 1003 GMT while the MSCI index for Southeast Asia was 2.12 percent lower, led by a 1.8 percent drop in the MSCI index for Thailand.
Top refiner Thai Oil lost 2.4 percent, Singapore-listed commodities firm Noble Group dropped 3.7 percent and the Philippines' biggest power distributor, Manila Electric, eased 2.8 percent. Among bright spots, Singapore Telecommunications gained 0.6 percent after Southeast Asia's biggest telecoms company announced an attractive dividend. In Bangkok, Esso (Thailand) shot up more than 10 percent to a record high after its first-quarter net profit was almost 13 times higher than a year before, beating forecasts and prompting analysts to upgrade earnings forecasts.