The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Index rose by 3.54 points or 0.22 per cent to 1,642.95 on Monday morning, witnessing a high of 1,645.72 and a low of 1,642.07 in opening trade.
Krungsri Securities predicted the day’s index would fluctuate between 1,630 and 1,650 points despite rising oil price in response to tightening supply and hope over Thailand reopening after domestic Covid-19 cases have declined.
The brokerage firm, meanwhile, said uncertainty over the US Federal Reserve signalling it would taper its quantitative easing and fund flow volatility would pressure the index.
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It also recommended buying of the following companies’ shares as an investment strategy:
▪︎ PTT, PTTEP, TOP, PTTGC, SPRC, BCP and IVL, which benefit from rising oil price
▪︎ AOT, KBANK, SCB, CPN, CRC, HMPRO, AAV, BA, MINT, AMATA, WHA and MAJOR, which benefit from the country reopening.
The SET Index closed at 1,639.41 on Friday, up 5.69 points or 0.35 per cent. Transactions totalled 92.93 billion baht with an index high of 1,644.16 and a low of 1,635.77.
The price of gold dropped by THB50 in morning trade on Monday, the Gold Traders Association reported.
Areport at 9.23am said the buying price of a gold bar was THB28,050 per baht weight and selling price THB28,150, while the buying and selling price of gold ornaments is THB27,545.72 and THB28,650, respectively.
At close on Saturday, the buying price of a gold bar was THB28,100 per baht weight and selling price THB28,200, while gold ornaments were THB27,591.20and THB28,700, respectively.
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The spot gold price on Monday morning hovered around US$1,760 (THB59,505) per ounce after Comex gold at close on Friday dropped by $1.8 to $1,757.4 per ounce due to pressure from the rise in the US government bond yields, although the numbers of US non-farm payrolls in September came out much lower than expected.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she is confident that Congress will include provisions for a global minimum tax on corporate profits in reconciliation legislation, days after the United States and 135 other nations endorsed the levy to combat tax-cutting.
Each country that signed the deal must pass legislation to enact the measure, which is aimed at limiting corporations’ ability to lower their tax bills by shifting profits to the lowest-tax jurisdictions globally.
“I am confident that what we need to do to come into compliance with the minimum tax will be included in a reconciliation package. I hope that it will be passed and we will be able to reassure the world that the United States will do its part,” Yellen told ABC News’s “This Week” program.
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Congressional Democrats are currently hammering out a so-called reconciliation bill that would substantially raise federal spending on social safety-net programs and on fighting climate change.
Low-tax nations, including Ireland and Hungary, that had long resisted the minimum-tax deal finally endorsed it last week, bringing it closer to fruition after six years of global diplomatic bargaining. All members of the Group of 20 nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have signed on.
The rule requires countries to set a minimum tax of 15 percent on the profits of companies with annual revenue above 750 million euros.
The OECD, which led discussions on the deal, said it would allow countries to collect around $150 billion in new revenue annually.
A recent report found that corporations are shifting $1.38 trillion worth of profit each year into havens that charge little to no tax, causing the governments where that profit is actually earned to miss out on $245 billion in annual revenue.
Yellen said the deal would curb the global “race to the bottom” through which countries have cut their tax rates ever lower to attract businesses to set up headquarters and hire workers.
The tax-cutting spree has deprived many countries of the “resources we need to invest in our people and our economies,” she said. The deal “is really something we need to make globalization work and to make it work for American workers,” Yellen added.
Some critics said the agreement, which updates the 3,000-odd bilateral treaties that regulate global taxation, doesn’t do enough for the world’s poorest countries.
The 15 percent rate is too low and “will neither curb profit shifting effectively, nor provide substantial revenues to more than a handful of OECD member countries,” Alex Cobham, chief executive at the nonprofit Tax Justice Network, said in an emailed statement. “Everyone else has been left out – especially lower-income countries which lose the greatest share of their current tax revenues to corporate tax abuse.”
WASHINGTON – At one point during a private 90-minute Zoom call with liberal lawmakers on Monday, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., asked President Joe Biden why he had not simply locked Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in a room and forced them to cut a deal on the Democrats economic package.
Smiling back at Khanna, Biden said, “Ro, that would be like asking for a homicide,” according to two people on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private exchange.
Biden’s joking response underlined a serious fact: He faces daunting difficulties in the coming weeks now that the recent dramas over his economic plans have left him just a few weeks to salvage his agenda, right his presidency and tackle problems that in some cases were years in the making.
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Democrats are pushing to pass his infrastructure bill by month’s end, following recent setbacks on the Hill, along with a broad safety net package. The two bills include major climate provisions that Biden wants to tout at a global climate summit next month, and Democrats also want something to show Virginia’s voters before their Nov. 2 vote for governor.
“If we don’t pass one of those before the gubernatorial election, it’s a huge, huge mistake,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., referring to the infrastructure bill and a separate measure to boost U.S. science and research, both of which have passed the Senate but not the House. “We’ve got two major wins – two major bipartisan wins. . . . Let’s get at least one if not both of those wins for the president on the board.”
A recent deal with Senate Republicans, meanwhile, staved off a disastrous government default until December, but at the cost of ensuring that a politically explosive debt-limit fight will unfold as the White House is struggling to push through the other bills.
This upcoming stretch may be Biden’s last chance to revive a presidency that has suffered major blows in recent months. Since being rocked by the Afghan withdrawal and the surging delta variant over the summer, Biden’s approval rating has fallen steadily, hitting a low of 38% in the latest Quinnipiac poll. Some of the campaign pledges that inspired Biden’s supporters, from voting rights to immigration reform, have fallen by the wayside. A jobs report on Friday suggested the economy has been slowed down by the delta variant.
Beyond that, the coming weeks will tell whether Biden’s central message – that America’s democratic system can still tackle big problems – will hold true. Even if the president cannot push through his major goals by month’s end, he faces enormous pressure to show at least some progress, with White House aides looking at the months leading up to Christmas as a crucial window.
To make that happen, Biden is gambling on the freewheeling negotiating style reflected in his crack about Sanders and Manchin, which was first reported by CNN. His style features banter and light teasing between the president and members of Congress he has in many cases known for decades, coupled with attempts to lay out priorities and nudge lawmakers toward compromise.
If he does succeed, the payoff could be significant. The infrastructure bill and safety net package combined would represent the biggest federal investment in the economy in decades, and polls suggest they are popular. Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee for Virginia governor, is among those publicly pushing for the bipartisan infrastructure legislation to be quickly enacted to show that Washington can still deliver results.
“We’re going to try to move as quickly as we can,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who is overseeing major revisions to the tax code and health-care programs. “This is going to be a window when people are really going to see who’s focusing on them.”
Conversely, without action, the expanded Child Tax Credit, which has become a staple of the administration’s economic message, will abruptly cut off at the end of December, depriving millions of parents of expected payments.
Biden has become heavily involved in the discussions over how to wage these fights, and is now devoting much of his daily schedule to his legislative priorities, aides say.
The president is briefed almost every morning on the negotiations by senior aides in the Oval Office and receives multiple updates throughout the day. Louisa Terrell, who heads the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, often attends those meetings, along with National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, White House Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice and longtime Biden aide Steve Ricchetti, who serves as counselor to the president.
Aides say Biden’s approach is to encourage Democrats of all ideological stripes to describe what would enable them to sign onto a deal, rather than trying to coerce them into supporting the president’s blueprint.
“President [Barack] Obama’s attitude was: ‘Here’s what we think.’ Biden is a little more like, ‘What can we do? How can we meet you?'” said one administration official who has worked with Biden for years, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations. “It’s all about hearing where the other person is coming from.”
That approach is mirrored by the president’s top advisers. Ahead of meetings, congressional aides often plan how best to elicit approval from White House officials on a particular position, according to multiple people involved in the negotiations.
But the officials – including Terrell and Deese – are often scrupulously poker-faced and elusive about Biden’s personal convictions, as well as their own beliefs, on issues that divide Democrats, the people said, often to the frustration of people on Capitol Hill.
“They are really good at not showing their cards, and it leaves you with the impression they’re just trying to piece it all together,” one of the aides said.
Phil Schiliro, who served as Obama’s director of legislative affairs, said such talks can get highly emotional. “It seems very contentious from the outside – feelings can run high and it feels like it might not happen,” said Schiliro, who was involved in the high-pressure talks over the Affordable Care Act. “But if the conversations behind the scenes are happening the right way, there’s an ability to reconcile differences.”
Arguably, though, the president has little to show thus far for his strategy. Congressional Democrats have struggled for months to reach an agreement, and the possibility remains that Biden’s entire agenda could collapse amid internal sniping.
Those frustrations spilled into the open this week with an extraordinary back-and-forth between Manchin, a moderate and one of the Democrats’ key holdouts on the safety net bill, and Sanders, a democratic socialist and a leader of the party’s liberal wing.
On Wednesday, Manchin reiterated his belief that the bill should not exceed $1.5 trillion, saying he did not believe that “we should turn our society into an entitlement society.” That prompted a blistering response from Sanders, who continues to back the $3.5 trillion bill.
“Is protecting working families and cutting childhood poverty an entitlement?” Sanders asked at a news conference. After reeling off a list of similar rhetorical questions, he added, “Perhaps most importantly, does Senator Manchin not believe what the scientists are telling us, that we face an existential threat regarding climate change?”
The increasingly public warfare underscores not only the yawning financial gap Democrats must bridge in short order, but also fundamental differences about what issues to prioritize among a very long list. The bill currently includes a variety of priorites from universal pre-kindergarten care to tuition-free community college, and from new Medicare benefits to climate provisions.
Many Democrats believe they could lose the House in 2022 and not have another opportunity to enact their agenda for years, further ramping up the pressure to deliver results now.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is pressuring fellow Democrats to agree on a framework for the safety net package in a matter of days, so it and the infrastructure bill can be passed by the end of this month. The infrastructure bill has bipartisan support, but Democrats will have to push the safety net bill through the Senate with only Democratic votes, using a complex parliamentary procedure called reconciliation.
Some Democrats are signaling they do not necessarily feel bound by party leaders’ rapid timetable.
“Obviously, this is an enormously complicated and consequential bill,” Sanders said at the news conference. “The American people are not calling my office saying, ‘You’ve got to do it by Thursday or by next Monday.’ What they are saying is, ‘Make sure that we continue to have the $300 payment for our kids. Make sure that you can expand Medicaid. Make sure you deal with climate.’ “
As they battle over the size of the legislation, Democrats are also debating how to structure the benefit programs so they fit under the final cap.
Manchin argues forcefully that Democrats should impose income limits on programs like the Child Tax Credit, so that wealthier households do not receive benefits they may not need. But if the Child Tax Credit is adjusted that way, it could violate Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on households earning less than $400,000 per year, while adding administrative complications to a program still in its infancy.
Some liberal lawmakers, in turn, have floated the idea of funding some new programs only for a set number of years, which in theory would lower their costs. The liberals hope, however, that the programs will prove so popular that Congress would be forced to extend them later. But some centrist lawmakers are balking at that accounting strategy.
Biden’s challenge is that both wings of the Democratic Party believe they have already been forced to yield too much. Centrists complain that the president has taken the liberals’ side by tying the infrastructure package to the far more liberal safety net bill.
“If Biden thinks he’s adopted a middle course that should leave people equally happy, he has misjudged the situation,” said Bill Galston, a former domestic policy official in President Bill Clinton’s administration. “The prevailing view of the centrists is the president has tilted decisively in the other direction. There’s not a lot of joy in Mudville.”
Liberals are rankled that after they agreed to cut down the size of the safety net package significantly to $3.5 trillion, they are now being told they must reduce it much more.
“There is nothing superfluous in the agenda. Every dollar is needed to deliver millions of good-paying jobs, affordable child care and health care, and a clean energy future,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning group.
If Biden has one weapon in his arsenal, it’s the recognition by many Democrats that if his agenda collapses, it could be devastating for the party in the 2022 midterm elections and beyond.
Democrats above all else are trying desperately to avoid what happened with President Donald Trump’s pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017. That effort bogged down the congressional Republican majority for months, and when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., finally brought a repeal provision to the floor for a vote, it was defeated in a major embarrassment.
Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said that passing major, substantive legislation is particularly important to two groups of voters – women who swing between the two parties and Democratic voters who often may not to turn out to vote.
“Both of those groups really want something done,” Lake said. “And the White House knows that.”
A recent survey shows that the real-estate confidence index in Bangkok and its vicinity has dropped to below average over the past 10 quarters, the Real Estate Information Centre (REIC) reported on Saturday.
The Government Housing Bank’s REIC said the confidence index of residential developers in Greater Bangkok in the third quarter of this year stood at 45.8, marking a slight drop from the previous quarter.
However, the centre said it believes confidence will improve in the next six months once the Covid-19 situation eases.
The index value for the sector has been below the median of 50 for 10 consecutive quarters since the second quarter of 2019.
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REIC acting director-general Wichai Viratakaphan said the Bank of Thailand’s loan-to-value (LTV) control measures in the second quarter of 2019, coupled with the Covid-19 pandemic were to blame for the low index.
He said these two factors had slowed down both supply and demand in the real-estate sector, adding that developers were still very concerned about the ongoing pandemic.
“However, the confidence index among developers in Greater Bangkok for the next six months has risen to 57.2. This may be due to the government’s promise to have 70 per cent of the population fully vaccinated by the end of 2021, including using the Pfizer vaccines donated by the US to provide free boosters,” Wichai said.
He added that the Centre for Economic Situation Administration (CESA) also recently proposed new measures to the Cabinet, including the expansion of the ceiling for foreign buyers. CESA proposed that foreigners be allowed to own more than 49 per cent of condominium units as well as be allowed to buy landed property.
“The confidence in real estate for the next six months has risen significantly since the government began relaxing lockdown measures and allowing some businesses like restaurants, beauty salons, massage parlours and airlines to resume business,” he concluded.
Outstanding value of bonds issued by Thai firms as of September 2021 is recorded at THB14.9 trillion, increasing 57 per cent comparing to the same period last year, the Thai Bond Market Association (ThaiBMA) revealed on Friday.
“Total value of bonds issued by Thai firms in the first three quarters amounted to THB817.5 billion,” said Ariya Diranaprakit, deputy managing director at ThaiBMA. “The top five businesses that issued the most bonds are energy (20.6 per cent), property (15.1 per cent), finance (13.6 per cent), commerce (12.8 per cent) and food (11.8 per cent).”
Ariya added that ThaiMBA also found that increasing number of sellers having been using online channels and mobile applications to sell bonds during Covid-19 lockdown to facilitate investors.
“The total buying value of foreign investors in nine months of 2021 is recorded at Bt66 billion, with total bond holding value among foreign investors as of end of third quarter recorded at Bt915.9 billion, or 6 per cent of total outstanding value of Thai bonds,” she said. “About 90 per cent of these are long term bonds with average holding period of 9.4 years”
ThaiMBA estimates that in the last quarter of 2021 the yield of long-term bond of up to 10 years will rise marginally following the trend of global market, but could still fluctuate depending on a number of economic factors that have yet to be revealed.
The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Index closed at 1,639.41 on Friday, up 5.69 points or 0.35 per cent. Transactions totalled 92.93 billion baht with an index high of 1,644.16 and a low of 1,635.77.
The index rose for the second day running after increasing by 0.88 per cent on Thursday.
In the morning session, Krungsri Securities expected the day’s index would rise to between 1,640 and 1,645 points after the US Senate had reached an agreement to extend debt limit until December, enabling Washington to cope with risks of default payments.
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It added that the index also gained positive sentiment from the decline in US jobless claims, rising oil price and hopes over Thailand reopening.
The 10 stocks with the highest trade value today were BANPU, SVT, KBANK, TRUE, CPALL, JAS, AOT, TU, SCB and BBL.
Other Asian indices were mixed: Japan’s Nikkei Index closed at 28,048.94, up 370.73 points or 1.34 per cent. China’s Shanghai SE Composite closed at 3,592.17, up 24.00 points or 0.67 per cent., while the Shenzhen SE Component closed at 14,414.16, up 105.15 points or 0.73 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed at 24,837.85, up 136.12 points or 0.55 per cent. South Korea’s KOSPI Index closed at 2,956.30, down 3.16 points or 0.11 per cent. Taiwan’s TAIEX Index closed at 16,640.43, down 73.43 points or 0.44 per cent.
Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit announced on Thursday that his ministry was launching a set of proactive measures to better manage fruit supplies next year.
The minister was speaking at a meeting with agencies related to agriculture and commerce as well as representatives of farmers, exporters and logistics service providers.
The measures will include boosting distribution, promoting local consumption, promoting online and offline sales, matching up businesses, improving farmers’ and exporters’ potential and controlling the price of fruit.
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“The measures are necessary because the country’s fruit supply is expected to increase to 3.5 million tonnes next year, up 8 per cent compared to this year,” he said.
Jurin said Thailand had achieved success in the export of fruits in the first eight months this year as it had generated up to 169 billion baht in revenue, up 46 per cent year on year.
He added that the ministry will promote the registration of geographical indication (GI) products in a bid to increase the value of agricultural goods.
“This year, the ministry registered 152 GI products, covering 77 provinces nationwide, with sales up to 40 billion baht,” he added.
Poon added that the baht will not strengthen much as the economy is not completely recovered and the dollar still strengthens. Importers will buy on dip when the baht strengthen to the level of 33.60 to the dollar.
A 9.25am report from the Gold Traders Association showed the buying price of gold bar at THB28,100 per baht weight and selling price at THB28,200, while the buying and selling price of gold ornaments is THB27,591.20 and THB28,700, respectively.
At close on Thursday, the buying price of gold bar was THB28,050 per baht weight and selling price THB28,150, while gold ornaments were THB27,545.72 and THB28,650, respectively.
The spot gold price on Friday morning was hovering around US$1,760 (THB59,576) per ounce after Comex gold at close on Thursday dropped by $2.6 to $1,759.2 per ounce due to the selling of gold as safe-haven assets after the number of the US unemployment claims fell the most in three months. As for tonight, the market is keeping an eye on the US non-farm payrolls, which will be one of the factors the US Federal Reserve uses in considering cuts in its quantitative easing bond purchase program and interest rate hikes.
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