Most major Southeast Asian stock markets edged higher on Thursday with a global oil price surge boosting appetite for resource shares, although gains were offset by investors cashing in recent climbers ahead of market holidays. Market players generally turned cautious as several Asian bourses will be shut on Friday for Good Friday and Easter, including Hong Kong , Singapore , Indonesia and the Philippines.
Hopes for good quarterly results by Southeast Asian firms helped draw in foreign inflows, driving most emerging bourses to their new highs early in the day. The earnings plays still boded well for a further upward market trend, said Warut Siwasariyanon, head of research at broker Finansia Syrus Securities.
Indonesia's main share index inched up 0.17 percent, coming off an intraday record peak, amid a bout of profit taking by domestic investors. Jakarta took on board $47 million of inflows on Thursday ahead of a three-day weekend, Thomson Reuters data showed. Asian stocks jumped on Thursday as investors scrambled for higher-yielding assets. The MSCI Asia ex-Japan advanced 1.36 percent, by 1017 GMT.
Thailand's SET index edged up 0.23 percent on Thursday, scaling a fresh 15-year peak at one point. Singapore's Straits Times Index ended up 0.9 percent, the region's best performer on the day. The city state's main index rose to near three-month highs early in the session. Its market turnover was 1.6 times its 30-day average - the region's most active turnover - ahead of the market's three-day weekend.
Vietnam eked out a small 0.4 percent gain and Malaysia, bucking the trend, lost 0.3 percent, erasing its early gain. Malaysia gained $35 million inflows on Thursday, adding to the $55 million inflows of the previous session and Thai stocks took in $87 million on top of the $141 million of inflows for the past three sessions, the exchange said. Among gainers, Thai largest refiner Thai Oil climbed almost 2 percent amid optimism about its gross refining margins and Singapore's oil rig builder Keppel Corp rose 1.7 percent on stronger-than-expected first quarter net profit.