Stock Exchange of Thailand Sees March Volumes Up 25% From February

The Bangkok-headquartered bourse known as the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) has today reported March trading metrics showing increases across its key product lines, including in its Market for Alternative Investments (MAI), which together combined for an average daily volume (ADV) of 52.56 billion Thai bhat (THB) or roughly $1.49 billion USD worth of securities, and was higher by 25.73% from February.

The exchange itself also ended the month higher in March, which helped lift volumes , and which brought market capitalization (cap) to THB 13.73 trillion across both venues, up 5.4% month-over-month (MoM).

Listed companies raised THB 2.47 billion, with THB 1.36 billion from the primary market where market cap reached 13.41 trillion or USD 379.8 billion, and with market cap on MAI reaching THB 326.12 billion after 1.12 billion was raised for its secondary market according to the SET update.

SET foreign investors continued to be net buyers in Q1 2016 after being net sellers since Q4 2014, helping to reverse that trend. Derivatives trading on the SET also jumped in March by 36.36% from February’s totals, and reached 261,629 contracts per day, according to the SET press release.

Despite ending higher last month, the SET is just under its March-end closing price of 1407.70, having last traded today at 1369.84 this Monday in Asia. The news follows after SET announced earlier last week that it will launch a technology startup learning initiative for small to medium size businesses starting April 24.

During that announcement, SET President Kesara Manchusree stated: “To enhance Thai businesses and the country towards sustainable growth according to the government’s economic policy, SET has been taking a leading role in developing professional personnel
for the business sector. This year one of our priorities is to cultivate SMEs, start-ups and SEs and we have finalized the idea of setting up an enterprise learning center, underlining SET’s key strategic plan to groom these entrepreneurs to become the country’s economic drivers.”