Southeast Asian markets: Thailand hits 11-week low

Thailand's stock market closed nearly 2 percent weaker on Wednesday and touched an 11-week low as offshore investors dumped big caps after foreign brokers downgraded the market on concern over valuations and an upcoming election. Continued foreign selling in big cap banking and energy shares dragged the index down after foreign brokers including Goldman Sachs downgraded Thai stocks, analysts said.
The Bangkok market recorded its sixth straight fall to its lowest close since March 18. At one point it was down 2.5 percent. Thailand saw a foreign outflow of $250 million on Wednesday, the highest since January 21 according to Reuters data, taking net foreign selling to $413 million in the past three sessions.
Goldman Sachs said in a report on Tuesday that election uncertainty, high sensitivity to oil prices and other factors made Thai stocks unattractive at a time of weaker economic growth and rising inflation. "Investor sentiment is quite bad," said Teerada Charnyingyong, senior strategist at broker Phillip Securities in Bangkok.
Thailand's MCSI index is trading 9 percent above its long-term average 12-month forward price-to-earning ratio, Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S data showed. Indonesia is 35 percent above. Both of them are expensive compared to the entire MSCI Asia-Pacific ex-Japan index, which is trading 8.5 percent below its average. The Philippines and Malaysia are trading 4.2 percent and 1 percent above their respective averages.
In Thailand, the banking and energy sectors fell 1.9 percent and 2 percent respectively on Wednesday to their lowest in more than three months, Reuters data showed. Thailand's top lender, Bangkok Bank , fell 2.6 percent, number two Krung Thai Bank dropped 4.5 percent and Kasikornbank , the third-largest lender, closed 2.2 percent weaker, while top energy firm PTT lost 2.7 percent to hit a four-month low.
Indonesia closed 0.5 percent weaker with a foreign outflow of $14.1 million, while Singapore closed 0.4 percent weaker. Malaysia closed a tad weaker with $17.3 million in outflows and Vietnam was down 0.9 percent. Bucking the trend, the Philippines gained 0.5 percent with a foreign inflow of $4.9 million. Asian stocks outside Japan were down 0.92 percent by 1033 GMT, while the MSCI index for Southeast Asia was down 0.71 percent.