The Stock Exchange of Thailand plunged by another 6% in October, matching its 6% drop in September, closing the month at 1,381.83 points (down 6.1% month-on-month), with average daily turnover declining almost 5% to only 45.6 billion baht. With these two big drops, the SET hit a three-year low at 1,371.22 points in late October.
A number of sentiment-damaging events took place during October. First was the shooting at Siam Paragon that killed three people. As one of the fatalities was a Chinese tourist, the impact on the tourism sector looked to be severe. Even with the government’s visa-free programme, Chinese tourism has been lacklustre and is likely to fall short of the forecast 5 million arrivals this year.
Second was the Hamas attack on Israel, which led to the breakout of a war that shows no sign of ending soon. Already more than 11,000 people,…
