Southeast Asian stocks weaker

Southeast Asian stock markets fell on Tuesday, led by financials and resources as worries over the fragile nature of the global economic recovery and the prospect of further monetary tightening weighed on sentiment. Thailand , the region's best performer this year, shed 2.12 percent, Indonesia fell 0.9 percent from the previous session's record high and Singapore closed 0.8 percent weaker at a two-week low.
Malaysia and the Philippines edged down 0.2 percent. "There is no compelling reason for investors to rush for stocks at this juncture as inflation is rising and further monetary policy tightening measures are expected globally amid a slipping dollar," said Song Seng Wun, a Singapore-based regional economist at CIMB-GK Research.
Manufacturing growth in the world's two biggest economies, the United States and China, softened in March but it firmed in Europe and India, data showed, highlighting the fractured nature of the global economic recovery. "If the US payroll data shows an improvement, sentiment may turn back to shares and risky assets on the hope of a better second quarter in the United States," Wun said.
The holiday mood also affected regional markets, traders said. Markets other than Indonesia and the Philippines were closed on Monday. The MSCI SEAsia, a measure to gauge market performance in Southeast Asia excluding Vietnam, was down 1.45 percent on Tuesday, in line with MSCI's index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan , which fell 1.42 percent.
Despite the falls, most of the markets enjoyed net foreign inflows on Tuesday, with Indonesia taking in $19.3 million, a day after it received $89.3 million, while the Philippines saw $4.2 million in inflows, Thomson Reuters data showed. Malaysia received a net inflow of $16.2 million and Thailand saw a net foreign inflow of $23.8 million, strock exchange data for the countries showed.
Bangkok had its biggest percentage drop since October 2, which drove the bourse to its lowest in a month, led by banks and energy shares in heavy trading volume, some 1.3 times its 30-day average. Domestic politics was in the spotlight as investors waited to see if parliament would be dissolved to clear the way for an early general election, although the bourse authority did not see that as a factor. "The Thai market fall today was a reaction to weak sentiment in regional markets," said Charamporn Jotikasthira, the president of Thailand's Stock Exchange.
"There was no significant concerns involving the government's house dissolution plan," Charamporn added. In Jakarta, the index fall was driven by financials and mining shares. "Most banking and resources stocks closed in negative territory as investor sold on the news, after strong Q1 results, and a drop in commodities price," said John Teja, director of Ciptadana Securities, in Jakarta.