Thai shares up as brokers keep minimum fees

Thai stocks ended higher on Thursday, recovering from early losses after new Finance Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said it was impossible to scrap minimum broker fees, prompting investors to buy shares in the firms.
The benchmark Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) composite index rose 2.45 points, or 0.35 percent, to 707.74 points, but the big-cap SET 50 index ended down 0.17 percent at 46.66 points
Turnover rose to 30.8 billion baht ($781.3 million), from 22.53 billion baht on Wednesday.
The market bounced back after Somkid said removing minimum brokerage fees would prompt a price war, helping lift the sectoral index 2.5 percent as investors lost their fear of a decline in brokerage earnings.
Somkid said the current minimum fee of 0.25 percent should be reviewed every two years with regulators taking changing brokerage costs into account.
Shares in Kim Eng Securities, the top broker in terms of market share, rose 4.5 percent to 58 baht after falling more than three percent in early trade.
Shares in Seamico Securities, one of top five brokers, rose 4.96 percent to 12.70 baht, while Capital Nomura Securities, a unit of Japan's Nomura Securities, shot up 7.5 percent to 93.50 baht.
The market fell to a one-week low on Thursday morning in response to gloomy global sentiment, but shares in Airports of Thailand rose on their debut as investors bet on a tourism boom.
Asian markets tracked Wall Street lower on Thursday, with Tokyo, Singapore and South Korea all down.
"The market took a breather, following the directions of global stock markets," said analyst Arpaporn Sawaengpak of DBS Vickers Securities.
The Thai stock market is one of Asia's worst performers so far this year and analysts see its recent rallies as overheating. It was the best performing market in the world last year with an annual increase of 116 percent.
The most actively traded shares on Thursday were shares in Airports of Thailand PCL (AOT), which rose 14.3 percent to 48 baht from an initial public offering price of 42 baht.
Shares in top domestic credit card issuer Krung Thai Card fell 1.8 percent and AEON Thana Sinsap dropped 4.6 percent after a newspaper said the central bank was working on tighter regulations to control credit card companies.