TFEX weekly summary

The Thai stock market last week was wildly volatile due to profittaking and the regional stock market slump following a longtime rally.

The SET Index mainly followed the direction of overseas stock markets and is entering a consolidation phase because of the murky economic recovery.

The Industrial Confidence Index in April started to pick up at 76.3 points, from 69.4 in March, thanks to higher orders, sales and production capacity.

However, the local and international economic slowdown, coupled with the local political situation, still eroded manufacturers' confidence.

Even though governments across the world have tried to inject money into the system, it is not sufficient to handle the deeprooted economic problems.

Most recently, the US Federal Reserve cut its 2009 economic growth target from 0.51.3 per cent to a con¬traction of 1.32 per cent, and also forecast that the unemployment rate would hit a record high this year.

The Fed's decision to pump more dollars into the financial system to boost the economy weakened the greenback, while investors' concerns that the US sovereign credit rating will be downgraded - after Standard and Poor's cut the UK's outlook from stable to negative - also tamed the stock market's recent euphoria.

The average trading volume last week on the Thailand Futures Exchange was 13,594 contracts a day, while open-interest contracts last Thursday numbered 31,468.

Weekly total trading volume was 67,972 contracts worth Bt26.69 billion. Of the total contracts, 61,010 were SET50 Index Futures, 1,094 were single-stock futures, 2,827 were gold futures and 2,041 were SET50 Index Options.