The Baht was volatile while the SET closed below 1,300 points

•    The Thai stock market dropped for three consecutive weeks amid concerns about trade wars and sell-offs of large-cap stocks but recovered somewhat at the end of the week.
        The SET tumbled early in the week in line with other stock markets amid concerns about the escalation of trade wars after US announced to impose new tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China, effective February 4, 2025 (although the US agreed to hold off new tariffs on Canada and Mexico for 30 days), and later China announced retaliatory actions against the US. Such negative factor caused sell-offs across the board.  
        The SET continued to drop during the week with an additional pressure from the sell-offs of stocks of a major electronic component manufacturer as the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) proposed the 10% limit on the weight of individual stocks in the SET50, SET50FF, SET100, and SET100FF index to reduce the influence of large-cap stocks on the index. In addition, the SET was dragged by the management buyout issue of a major retail business operator and sell-offs of maturing long-term funds (LTFs). However, the SET pared losses somewhat at the end of the week after hitting its lowest in 4 years and 3 months at 1,252.26 points, boosted by the purchases of stocks of a telecommunications company and energy company due to dividend payment news, and purchases of stocks of a major retail business operator that had been heavily sold off earlier.
•    On Friday, February 7, 2025, the SET closed at 1,282.09 points, down 2.47% over-week. The average daily trading value was THB48,831.04 million, up 37.12% over-week. The mai closed at 262.44 points, down 5.93% over-week.
•    February 10-14, 2025, KSecurities expects the SET to have support at 1,250 and 1,235 points, but resistance at 1,300 and 1,310 points, respectively. KResearch advises investors to watch key factors, including remarks of Fed Chairman and other Fed officials, 4Q-2024 performance results of Thai listed companies, policies of US president Donald Trump, and foreign fund flows. The US economic data that warrant close monitoring include CPI, PPI, Retail Sales and Industrial Production for January 2025, plus Weekly Jobless Claims. Close attention must also be paid to Industrial Production for December 2024 and GDP report for 4Q-2024 of Eurozone and UK, Japan’s PPI for January 2025 and China’s New Yuan Loans for January 2025.