Thai stocks jumped 3.8 percent on Thursday as investors hunted for bargains after Finance Minister Somkid Jatusripitak promised measures to help the market and TPI gave details of its latest restructuring plan.
But Areeya Property shares made a relatively unimpressive debut after what analysts called a pricey initial public offering price at nine baht.
Shares in Areeya, the third firm to list this week, edged up 2.2 percent to 9.2 baht, marking another disappointing IPO this year after all 2003's IPOs made double-digit jumps on their debuts.
The benchmark Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) composite index closed up 24.62 points, or 3.8 percent, at 671.92 points. The big-cap SET 50 index rose 4.11 percent to 45.13 points.
Turnover almost doubled to 25.75 billion baht ($658 million) from 13.2 billion baht on Wednesday.
Confidence started to return to the market, as shown by the rising volumes, after Somkid promised measures, including tax breaks, to boost the market and attract institutional investors.
He also said Thai stocks were attractive based on their fundamentals despite the escalating violence in the Muslim south, a comment analysts said helped investors begin to see Thai shares as worth buying.
"Investors got their hopes up after Somkid talked about the measures to stimulate the market," said KGI Securities analyst Pichai Lertsupongkit.
Thai Petrochemical Industry's announcement of its new debt restructuring plan also helped market sentiment as the firm, Thailand's biggest corporate defaulter, has been restructuring debt for more than six years, Pichai said.
Shares in TPI were suspended on Thursday and will resume trading on Friday. Shares in TPI Polene, Thailand's third-largest cement marker and 49 percent owned by TPI, leapt 12.2 percent to 34.5 baht after TPI said it would repay some debt with TPI Polene shares priced at 40 baht, 16 percent above the market price.
Shares in Bangkok Bank, one of TPI's major creditors, rose 4.9 percent to 96 baht as creditors are expected to increase their stake to 90 percent under the new plan.
Those were hefty jumps in a market in which the main index had fallen almost 14 percent this year.
Analysts said the market downturn was partly normal cyclical consolidation, especially as the index more than doubled last year, which coincided with the eruption of violence in the south in January.
"It just so happened that trouble started when the market was overbought," said Phillip Securities analyst Suppamas Payakapan, referring to the unrest in the Muslim south.
Capital Nomura Securities analyst Sukit Udomsirikul said Thai stocks had risen to a point where they were not attractively valued, so investors went into a period of profit-taking.
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