Thai shares expected to remain sluggish

The Thai stock market is likely to continue its sluggish trading pattern next week because of the absence of foreign investors at the market, an analyst said. The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) composite index gained 12.04 points or 1.71 percent over the past week to close Friday at 715.68.
But the average daily value dropped 5.44 percent from past week to 14.7 billion baht (442.6 million dollars). "Trading next week will be similar to this week because of a lack of participation by foreign investors (because of Christmas holidays)," said Pichai Lertsupongkit, an analyst at Thanachart Securities. "I think the value will drop significantly - to about 10 billion baht daily," he said.
He said the freezing of 65 major industrial projects worth several billion baht over environmental concerns continued to dampen sentiment, while investors were also worried about a renewal of political protests in the New Year.