Thai Stocks Slide Most in 11 Years as Investors Dump Riskier Assets

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Thai stocks posted their steepest slide since 2006 during a day when losses of 10% triggered a circuit breaker.

The benchmark SET Index tumbled as much as 12%, the most since December 2006, when regulators imposed and then rescinded currency controls on investors. Today’s plunge was the biggest among major regional equity gauges.

“The market is reacting now more to the fear of global investors,” said Win Phrompaet, a fund manager at Principal Asset Management Co. in Bangkok. “This may be a time to start buying, the market has reacted too much.”

Thailand is planning to set up a stock market stabilization fund in the next day or two, Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said in Bangkok. The money for the fund is already in place but the exact amount needs to be carefully considered, he added.

Thailand’s health ministry said Thursday that confirmed cases of the disease known as Covid-19 jumped by 11 to 70. That’s the biggest increase in recent days. Separately, a gauge of consumer confidence for February fell to its lowest level since April 1999 as the virus, a delay in the annual government budget and a drought eroded sentiment, according to the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce.

Airports of Thailand Pcl, the nation’s most valuable company, fell almost 13%. State-controlled PTT Pcl lost 9.4%. The SET index ended the day down 10.8%.

Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy has buckled under a collapse in tourism, a sector that accounts for about one-fifth of gross domestic product. The government this week approved a package of stimulus measures that it said will inject about 400 billion baht ($12.6 billion) to counter the blow from the coronavirus outbreak.

--With assistance from Suttinee Yuvejwattana and Natnicha Chuwiruch.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ishika Mookerjee in Singapore at imookerjee@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lianting Tu at ltu4@bloomberg.net, Margo Towie, Cecile Vannucci

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