Thai stocks rose on Tuesday, ending a four-day fall as bargain hunters bought into information technology firm Loxley in hope it will win a government lottery project, but profit-taking hit energy firm PTT.
Loxley shares rose 1.8 percent to 4.46 baht after a source at Finance Ministry said the government short-listed Loxley for the final bid for an on-line lottery project worth eight billion baht.
Shares in other bidders were mixed, with Advanced Information Technology PCL rising 1.5 percent to 35 baht and SVOA PCL ending down 0.8 percent at 2.4 baht after rising more than three percent in early trade.
Late selling ate into an early rise by shares in PTT, which ended unchanged at 149 baht.
The shares gained two percent in early trade, recovering from a drop of more than six percent over the previous four trading days, after the government said it had never "ordered" refineries to reduce their margins, which helped ease earnings concerns.
"Foreign selling continued as the policy was still unclear," said Boontiam Larppoonpholdee, head of equity sales of Kim Eng Securities.
The benchmark Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) composite index closed up 3.46 points, or 0.54 percent, at 645.58 points.
The big-cap SET 50 was up 0.73 percent at 43.99 points.
Turnover was 12.34 billion baht ($302.6 million), up slightly from 11.9 billion baht on Monday.
Analysts said they expected the index to move in the 640-650 point range on Wednesday as investors were looking forward to decisions on domestic and US interest rates.
The Thai central bank is expected to keep benchmark interest rates at record lows in a meeting on Wednesday, but to signal a rise later this year.
US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will make twice-yearly annual report on monetary policy to Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Shares in Delta Electronics (Thailand) fell 0.94 percent to 21 baht despite its plan to spend two billion baht this year on expanding output capacity and cutting production costs.
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