They said selling spread across the board as investors also turned jittery ahead of next week's court ruling on Thailand's two major political parties.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) composite index dropped 10.50 points, the largest fall since early January, to 720.72 while the blue-chip SET 50 index lost 7.76 to 509.67.

When the stock market closed for morning trading session, it plunged 1.6 per cent at one point during Thursday morning trading session to 719.56 from Wednesday which closed at 731.22 on mounting anxiety over political uncertainty in Thailand as well as regional stock slump.

The SET index, however, slightly recovered to end the first trading session at 721.51, down by 1.33 per cent.

Brokers said the sharp decline in the Thai stocks could be ascribed to investor fears over rising political uncertain toward court ruling on whether two key political parties would be dissolved scheduled on May 30. In addition, the SET index fall was also caused by regional stock market plunge led by Chinese stock markets after former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan commented that China's stock markets are already overheat.

Agence France Presse/The Nation