SET News 26/2024
							  March 11, 2024

SET market report for February 2024

BANGKOK, March 11, 2024 - Even though investors in February lowered their 
expectations for the Federal Reserve (Fed)'s policy rate cut to only three times
this year, the overall risk assets rallied as seen by Bitcoin and the US stocks
 hit records, commodities prices such as oil and gold climbed.

Senior Executive Vice President of The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Soraphol
Tulayasathien said that foreign funds flew back to the Thai stock market in
February, in line with other regional markets. However, the National Economic
and Social Development Council's economic growth forecast downgrade to 2.2-3.2
percent for 2024 hindered the stock market prospects. Other tailwinds included
export growth buoyed by the world's trade rebound and solid consumption growth
on the back of the continuous recovery of tourism sector. These encouraged
analysts to start raising profit forecasts of companies engaged in relevant
businesses and securities prices of these industry groups started to bounce
back. However, analysts recommended investors to pour money into high dividend
stocks for passive income amid the local and global uncertainties. Moreover,
returns of these high dividend-paying stocks continuously outpaced SET Index,
while they are considered as defensive stocks with lower beta than the market
average.

Key highlights for February
-At the end of February 2024, SET Index rose by 0.5 percent from the previous 
month to close at 1,370.67 points, moving in line with the regional peers.
However, the benchmark dropped 3.2 percent from the end of 2023.
-	In February, industry groups that outperformed SET Index when compared with 
the end of 2023 were Consumer Products, Services, Agro & Food Industry, and
Resources.
-SET's and Market for Alternative Investment (mai)'s average daily trading value
in February 2024 dropped 29.5 percent from a year earlier to THB 47.27 billion
(approx. USD 1.32 billion). Both markets' trading value averaged THB 47.19
billion a day for the January-to-February period. Foreign investors were net
buyers of THB 3.25 billion in February while they sold a net THB 27.62 billion
for the first two months of this year. Their trading ratio was higher than any
other types of investors for 22 consecutive months.
-In February, there were two newly listed companies on SET: NL Development pcl 
(NL) and Thai Credit Bank pcl (CREDIT), and three newly listed companies on mai:
PanelesMatic Solutions pcl (PANEL), NAT Absolute Technologies pcl (NAT) and
Euro Creations pcl (EURO).
-The Thai stock exchange's forward P/E ratio at the end of February 2024 was 
14.3 times, above the Asian stock market's average of 12.9 times. The historical
P/E ratio stood at 16.3 times, exceeding the Asian stock market's average of
15.3 times.
-Dividend yield ratio at the end of February 2024 was 3.31 percent, surpassing 
the Asian stock market's average of 3.19 percent.

Derivatives Market
-Thailand Futures Exchange (TFEX)'s daily trading volume in February 2024 
averaged 393,850 contracts, down 2.6 percent from the previous month largely due
to the lower trading volume of SET50 Index Futures. For the first two months of
2024. TFEX's daily trading volume fell 25.6 percent from a year before to
399,395 contracts mainly due to the decline in trading volume of SET50 Index
Futures and Single Stock Futures.

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