The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) announces that the exchange overall achieved its targets in the first half of this year, despite a slower-than-expected global economic recovery. The bourse is gearing up for the second half of 2012 by continuing to match the right financial opportunities for investors and businesses, together with building infrastructure to boost competitiveness in the region, with its new trading platform ready to implement and connect to the ASEAN Link in the third quarter of this year.
SET President Charamporn Jotikasthira said key SET developments would be rolled out in the third quarter to boost attractiveness of the Thai stock market and facilitate fundraising for businesses with potential that are in key sector driving the country’s economic growth. Some trading rules would be improved to welcome listing of holding companies by enabling Thai-registered holding firms investing in Indo-China to list on the Thai bourse. Also, rules would be expanded to support the listing of infrastructure funds and real estate investment trusts (REITs).
These key developments are expected to increase market capitalization of the Thai capital market. Meanwhile, SET is in the midst of testing and preparing the final stage of its new trading, information dissemination, and market surveillance systems for new equities products with market participants, including industry-wide tests, in order to ensure seamless operations of the new trading platform, and to be ready to connect with other exchanges in the region through the ASEAN Link in the third quarter of this year, Charamporn added
“We had upbeat performance in the second quarter by successfully increasing the number of new listings in the period, with market capitalization of new listings totaling THB 44.68 billion by the end of June, plus introducing new products, such as USD futures, launched in early June. We also welcomed two exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the main board, which were Thanachart Gold ETF (TGOLDETF) and KTAM Hong Kong ETF Tracker (HK),” Charamporn added.
Consequently, SET’s average daily turnover hit a high level in the second quarter, with average trading volume reaching about USD 1 billion, the highest volume among Southeast Asia’s stock markets. Numbers of retail trading accounts have been rising substantially and almost reached their 2012 targets in the first five months, with retail investor accounts rising by 39,637 accounts to 739,862, reaching the target of 740,000-750,000 accounts. Derivatives accounts were up 11,205 to 71,505 at the end of June, close to its 2012 target of 80,000.
SET has also continued to stimulate online investment by holding marketing activities with commercial banks and brokers throughout the first half of this year. These activities have resulted in online securities trading reaching 50.5 percent of the value of total retail investor trading in end-June, above its target of 50 percent.
For long-term capital market development, SET continues to enhance listed companies to follow environment, society, and governance standards by strengthening business administration to enable them to grow with sustainability. SET also provided guidelines for listed companies to operate business with social responsibility, consisting of Guidelines for Social Responsibility and the Guidelines for Sustainable Development report.
SET’s Executive Vice President Veerathai Santiprabhob gave an overview of stock market conditions and trading volumes in the first half, saying that stock markets and trading felt little impacts from political and economic woes in the Euro zone which had already hit investment confidence worldwide, helped by the recovery of Thailand’s economy, while Thailand’s financial institution system remained strong with high liquidity.
At the end of June, the SET index closed at 1,172.11 points, up 14.32 percent from the end of last year. Market capitalization of SET reached THB 9.71 trillion, up 15.49 percent from 2011, while the Market for Alternative Investment’s (mai) market valuation was at THB 81.75 billion, up 5.74 percent. The SET dividend yields were at 3.67 percent and its forward P/E ratio was 12.21 times, higher than 11.98 a year earlier.
Foreign investors were net buyers in the first six months, purchasing a net THB 64.1 billion, accounting for 24.62 percent of total trading volume, up from 23.43 percent a year ago. Average trading volume of SET and mai was at a combined THB 30.29 billion, down 1.69 percent from a year earlier. Derivatives trading volume jumped 41.2 percent from a year earlier by rising to 43,768 contracts, supported by mounting volumes of gold and USD futures.