Most Southeast Asian stocks rose on Wednesday, with battered Indonesian shares gaining some lost ground and others posting smaller gains amid eurozone debt uncertainty. Early selling in the bull markets of Southeast Asia this year has put several among Asia's underperforming bourses, including Indonesia. Thailand and the Philippines.
-- Indonesia leads regional rebound
Local punters entered Jakarta's stock market just as extensive losses, which started late last week, pushed it down to its lowest in over three months and near the oversold line. Its 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) almost broke below 30. "Today there's some buying from local investors but foreign investors keep selling," a Jakarta-based stock trader said
Emerging markets led global equities higher, with the MSCI index of Asia Pacific stocks ex-Japan up 1.16 percent by 0933 GMT. European stocks and the euro both rose on Wednesday on hopes that Portugal would get through a key bond auction unscathed and policymakers would boost a rescue fund that debt-scarred eurozone countries may need to tap.
Indonesia suffered more outflows on Wednesday, adding $56.7 million on a combined $525 million foreign selling over the past four sessions, Thomson Reuters data showed. The darling of emerging market investors had surged almost three-fold over the past two years and set a fresh record high just last week. Malaysia and the Philippines, which scaled record highs late last year, are struggling to recover.
The Philippines had $9.5 million of money flowing out on the day, on top of $24 million on Tuesday. Indonesia's key stock index ended 2.9 percent higher, in active trade of 1.25 times its average 30-day volume, ahead of 1.2 times for Singapore stocks and 0.9 times for Malaysia.
Investors picked the beneficiaries of growing local consumption, sending cigarette company PT Gudang Garam 7 percent higher and PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Indonesia's biggest telecoms firm, climbing 6 percent. In Bangkok, banks gained after the Bank of Thailand raised its policy interest rate by 25 basis points to 2.25 percent to cope with rising inflationary pressure.
"A higher interest rate should be negative to the bond market but positive to equity inflows and financial sectors, especially big banks," said Rakphong Chaisuparakul, a Bangkok-based strategist at KGI Securities. Bangkok Bank, Thailand's largest lender, gained 0.6 percent. The bank raised both its lending and deposit rates in response to the central bank move.