Most Southeast Asian stocks pull back

Most Southeast Asian stock markets fell on Monday as investors took profits in big-caps and financials while resource shares reversed early gains as global oil prices eased. Market volume was generally weak, with turnover of most of the bourses falling below a 30-day average.
Risk-averse sentiment was compounded by news of another strong earthquake that shook buildings in Tokyo and parts of eastern Japan late on Monday. "We saw the report caused most markets to come down. But I don't see panic selling and there's no major sell programme," said a Kuala Lumper-based equities trader.
Apart from the quake news, the region was under mild selling pressure and was widely seen as overbought after a rally over the past few weeks. The emerging Southeast Asian bourses underperformed most others in Asia on Monday, with the MSCI index of Singapore off nearly 1 percent and the MSCI index of Thailand around 0.9 percent lower by 0938 GMT.
The MSCI Emerging index edged down 0.3 percent and Asia stocks outside Japan were down 0.2 percent. The region's weaknesses came amid mixed fund flows. The Philippines drew in $13 million of foreign inflows on Monday, adding on $330 million over the past seven sessions, while Indonesia gained $26 million, Thomson Reuters data showed.
Malaysia reported small fund outflows of $3.2 million, after $450 million of inflows during the past 12 sessions. Thailand had an injection of $24 million on top of $1.22 billion in the past 13 sessions, the exchange said. Oil rig builder Keppel Corp fell 1.7 percent on Monday while Sembcorp Marine dipped 0.8 percent. In Bangkok, energy explorer PTT Exploration and Production dropped 1.8 percent, coming off three-year highs on expectations high oil prices would boost its earnings for the first quarter and 2011.
The Thai market moved in range on the day ahead of this week's Thai New Year holiday. It will be closed from April 13-15 and will resume trade on April 18. Among the region's losers, Indonesia's second-biggest lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia dropped 2.4 percent, climbing to an intraday record at one point, and Malaysian top lender Maybank off 0.1 percent, erasing some of 2 percent rise to five-month highs last week.
In Singapore, Aztech Group, an electronics, materials supply and marine logistics company, fell 5.4 percent after it said it will record a loss for its first quarter, compared with a profit a year earlier. Vietnam's stock market, the region's smallest bourse, was shut for two days to Tuesday for market holidays.