Southeast Asian markets Thailand suffers biggest fall in 15 months

Thailand's stock market fell 4.3 percent on Monday, leading most other Southeast Asian bourses down as foreign investors continued to bale out of markets they believe are vulnerable to growing inflationary pressures.
Thailand posted its biggest loss since October 15, 2009, led by energy and banking shares. Indonesia, the region's worst-performing bourse this year, lost 1 percent and the Philippines fell 1.2 percent to a 4-1/2 month low.
"Foreigners have been reallocating funds into markets like Taiwan and Korea where they see monetary policy measures are appropriate in a rising inflationary situation," said Song Seng Wun, a regional economist at CIMB-GK Research in Singapore.
Regional currencies slipped as foreigners pulled out, with the Thai baht hitting a four-month low against the dollar. The president of Thailand's stock exchange, Charamporn Jotikasthira, brushed it all off as a spot of profit-taking.
"It's time for profit-taking because foreign investors will earn both capital gains and currency gains," Charamporn told Reuters. "We see the foreign selling as temporary and flows should return to these markets, given their good economic growth."
On Monday, Indonesia and the Philippines saw net foreign outflows of $27.5 million and $14.7 million respectively. On Friday Thailand saw an outflow of $251 million. In baht terms, according to stock exchange data, it was the highest figure since May 24 last year when Bangkok was still picking itself up after bloody political protests.
On Monday, the exchange recorded foreign selling of 4.05 billion baht ($132 million), according to exchange data. Foreign investors still like the region's macroeconomic fundamentals and attractive stock valuations, but they have taken fright this year after looking at inflation and worrying how fast, and how far, interest rates may have to rise.
In the four weeks to January 21, Thailand suffered outflows of $465 million, while Indonesia and the Philippines saw selling worth $280 million and $52 million respectively, according to Nomura Research.
In contrast Taiwan and South Korea saw net foreign inflows of $1.4 billion and $3.1 billion in the same period. Thailand and Malaysia saw trading volume go above their 90-day average on Monday, but turnover elsewhere was fairly low.
Malaysia is trading at 14.0 times this year's projected earnings, the highest in the region and compared to all-Asia's 12.9. Thailand is trading at 12.0, lower than the 13.8 of Singapore, 13.2 of Indonesia and 12.5 of the Philippines, Thomson Reuters StarMine data shows.