Most Southeast Asian stock markets ended firmer on Thursday, with foreign inflows rising on the back of a weak dollar, but late profit-taking helped pull indexes from multi-year highs. Thailand and Indonesia ended with small gains but the Philippines climbed almost 1 percent as foreign inflows hit the highest this year.
-- Singapore comes off 29-month highs
Malaysia inched lower, after at one point touching a 33-month high, while Singapore ended down 0.2 percent after earlier approaching a 29-month high. Singapore's central bank increased the slope of the band in which it maintains the Singapore dollar, effectively a slight tightening of monetary policy. The Singapore dollar surged to a record high in reaction.
"The widening of the policy band is more in response to the unprecedented liquidity in global markets today and to cope with the uncertainty and volatility because the world is awash with liquidity, especially when the US looks to pump even more money to keep its economy afloat," said Song Seng Wun, a senior economist at CIMB Research.
The decision came as data showed Singapore's economy contracted at an annualised and seasonally adjusted rate of 19.8 percent in the third quarter, although the economy was still 10.3 percent bigger than a year before. "Singapore's GDP today is a signal of a turnaround indicating that global growth is slowing down, because we're mostly exposed to external demand," Song said.
Even so, commodities-related shares attracted buying interest across the region as oil prices climbed towards five-month highs. Singapore palm oil company Wilmar International Ltd rose 4.2 percent, while Thailand's top olefins maker, PTT Aromatics and Refining Pcl, jumped 4.4 percent. Malaysia's top power producer, Tenaga Nasional Berhad, rose 0.3 percent and Indonesia's biggest gas operator, PT Perusahaan Gas Negara Tbk, gained 3.13 percent.
Asian stocks rose, with the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index up 1.5 percent by 1018 GMT. However, Southeast Asia stocks underperformed, with MSCI Thailand down 0.3 percnt and MSCI Singapore down 0.2 percent. The Philippine market, which hit a record high early in the week, saw net foreign purchases of $147.6 million, far more than the $28.2 million in the previous two sessions, Thomson Reuters data showed.
Indonesia, which hit an all-time high early in the day, had $27.4 million in inflows, reversing $33 million in outflows the previous session, the data showed. Thailand's index baulked at the 1,000 level, last seen before the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, touching a high of 999.51. Bangkok attracted $135.3 million in inflows on the day, the biggest net foreign buying in three weeks, building on $317 milion in the previous six sessions, the exchange said.
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