Thai stocks level off as investors await key US data
The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Index closed at 1,625.27 on Thursday, down 1.00 point or 0.06 per cent. Transactions totalled THB105.96 billion with an index high of 1,636.22 and a low of 1,623.57.
In the morning session, Krungsri Securities forecast the SET Index on Thursday would fluctuate between 1,620 and 1,640 points amid hopes of a Thai economic recovery after mass vaccination commenced nationwide, and the US bond yield fell.
It also advised investors to follow the US Consumer Price Index for May as this would affect foreign fund flows, adding that the CPI is expected to rise by 4.7 per cent.
The 10 stocks with the highest trade value today were KBANK, TTA, RCL, BDMS, AOT, PTTGC, CPALL, EA, HANA and IVL.
Other Asian indices were mixed:
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Japan’s Nikkei Index closed at 28,958.56, up 97.76 points or 0.34 per cent.
China’s Shanghai SE Composite Index closed at 3,610.86, up 19.46 points or 0.54 per cent, while the Shenzhen SE Component Index closed at 14,893.59, up 175.19 points or 1.19 per cent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed at 28,738.88, down 3.75 points or 0.013 per cent.
South Korea’s KOSPI closed at 3,224.64, up 8.46 points or 0.26 per cent.
Taiwan’s TAIEX closed at 17,159.22, up 193.00 points or 1.14 per cent.
Bangkok gems and jewellery fair goes online this year
Thailand’s largest gems and jewellery trade fair will be held virtually this year in line with restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19.
The “BGJFF Virtual Trade Fair (66th Special Edition)” will run from June 22 and 24 via www.BGJF-VTF.com.
The Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP) said the response has been very positive, so far.
Nantapong Chiralerspong, deputy director-general of DITP, said: “This online event aims to create new opportunities in global trade for gems and jewellery entrepreneurs and help them ‘refill-reform-refine’ in these challenging times through marketing innovations in the new normal. This is part of the 14 roadmaps created by Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit.”
Bangkok gems and jewellery fair goes online this year
Thailand’s gems and jewellery exports dropped 39.89 per cent in 2020 due to the pandemic, though the country is still the world’s top exporter of silver jewellery and third in the gemstone category after the United States and Hong Kong.
Nantapong said the situation is expected to improve this year.
“We have seen good signs for exports this year, thanks to a recovering economic situation and increased consumer confidence in targeted markets. Since the end of 2020, many economies have started recovering. As for Thailand, orders have been rising, especially from online customers in the US and the UK.
“In the first quarter of 2021, Thailand’s gems and jewellery exports were valued at 53.76 billion baht, a 1.1 per cent increase and are expected to grow at least 5 per cent by the end of the year.”
He added that the online fair is available to everyone free of charge and expects results to turn out as planned.
“The BGJF platform is designed to make visitors feel as if they were in a real trade fair. It will feature digital showcases of more than 600 companies from across the world along with the online business matching services that can be booked in advance directly or through trade commissioners around the world. This event is expected to have at least 450 online business matchings and 500 million baht in revenue. To help support entrepreneurs whose businesses are affected by the pandemic, these special sessions are free of charge,” said Nantapong.
Bangkok gems and jewellery fair goes online this year
Apart from the showcase and business matching, visitors are invited to learn more about gems and jewellery trends and participate in other activities, including online seminars held by the Gem and Jewellery Institute of Thailand (GIT) and the BGJF Flash Sale.
The BGJF Virtual Trade Fair (66th Special Edition) will run from June 22 to 24 via www.BGJF-VTF.com. Exhibitors and buyers can register from today onwards.
AIA Thailand and AIA Group Organise “AIA Vitality Active Weekend Charity Challenge” to Support COVID-19 Crisis in Thailand and India
AIA Thailand together with AIA Group organise “AIA Vitality Active Weekend Charity Challenge”, a charity activity inviting AIA Vitality members to change their exercises into a donation to support COVID-19 crisis in Thailand and India. The activity will be held during a weekend of 12-13 June 2021.
Bill Lisle, AIA’s Regional Chief Executive and Group Chief Distribution Officer said “In light of the raging COVID-19 pandemic in India, where waves of coronavirus infections have now claimed the lives of over 300,000 people, AIA as a leading life insurance company in India, operating with our joint venture partner, Tata Group, for over 20 years, we recognise that this is a critical moment for us to make a meaningful, material contribution. AIA’s purpose to help millions of people live Healthier, Longer, Better Lives is more resonant than ever. AIA Group has contributed US$2.5 million to support relief efforts in India. We also collaborate with AIA in other markets across Asia to organise charity activities to support India and its local community which is in line with our purpose to encourage and support people to live Healthier, Longer, and Better Lives at a time of their greatest need.”
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“AIA Vitality Active Weekend Charity Challenge”
Kris Chantanotoke, AIA Thailand’s Chief Executive Officer said “AIA Thailand has been determined to continuously support people who have been affected from COVID-19 pandemic. We have donated 2 million baht to 20 field hospitals in 20 provinces across Thailand in the name of AIA Sharing A Life season 8. We are now organising another charity activity called “AIA Vitality Active Weekend Charity Challenge” to invite over 400,000 AIA Vitality members to change their exercises into a COVID-19 relief donation to support COVID-19 crisis in Thailand and India during a weekend of 12-13 June 2021. For every 100 exercise points, AIA Thailand will donate 20 baht to World Vision Foundation of Thailand to aid those affected by the COVID-19 outbreak in Thailand and India. This activity is considered as one of AIA Group’s contribution to India where the pandemic is severely ongoing.”
AIA Thailand assures to stand by and support all Thais and people around the world to overcome this pandemic together with strong mind and body. For AIA Vitality members who are interested in “AIA Vitality Active Weekend Charity Challenge”, please visit https://bit.ly/3uZa52w for more information or contact AIA Call Center 1581 for 24 hours.
Keep Dreaming of Summer in Thailand with Marriott Bonvoy
Guests offered generous rates, free breakfast, daily hotel credit, bonus points and flexible booking conditions at properties across the Kingdom
Marriott Bonvoy is inviting guests to enjoy even more sensational staycations in Thailand this summer – and beyond – with added value at Marriott International’s hotels and resorts all across the Kingdom.
Under the “Summer Dreaming” promotion, which has now been extended for stays until the end of March 2022, travelers who book a stay at more than 40 participating properties* in Thailand will benefit from preferential rates, complimentary breakfast for two, and generous daily resort credit! To offer extra flexibility to guests, all bookings can be cancelled without charge up to 24 hours before the check-in date.
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Keep Dreaming of Summer in Thailand with Marriott BonvoyMarriott Bonvoy members will also receive 5,000 bonus Marriott Bonvoy points! Not a member yet? CLICK HERE to sign-up for free.
Guests can maximize their stay with THB 1,000 of hotel credit per room per night, which can be redeemed for memorable meals at the hotel’s restaurants, sunset drinks at the bars, soothing spa treatments, room upgrades and more. So the longer you stay, the more rewarding your stay becomes!
A wide range of desirable destinations are available. Travelers can book an exciting urban adventure in Bangkok, a blissful beachfront break in Phuket, Hua Hin, Pattaya, Rayong, Khao Lak or Koh Samui, or a captivating cultural retreat in Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai. Alternatively, golfers can tee-off in a wide range of destinations across all the country.
The “Summer Dreaming” promotion is now valid for bookings made between 1 June and 31 August 2021, for stays taken before 31 March 2022. Reservations must be made direct via https://hotel-deals.marriott.com/summer-dreaming-thailand-en using the promotional code A1764.
GULF provides essentials to communities in fight against Covid-19
Gulf has donated food and other essentials such as rice, vegetable oil, drinking water, UHT milk, baby diapers. incontinence pads, absorbent sheets and medicine cabinet essentials to people in 50 districts in Bangkok
Gulf Energy Development Plc. (GULF) has donated food and other essentials such as rice, vegetable oil, drinking water, UHT milk, baby diapers. incontinence pads, absorbent sheets and medicine cabinet essentials to people in 50 districts in Bangkok, covering more than 1,800 households affected by Covid-19. GULF has also provided the communities with disinfectant fogging machines, sanitizing chemicals, temperature scanners with stands and fingertip pulse oximeters for the fight to prevent the spread of Covid-19. The total value of the donation is 1,300,000 baht
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GULF provides essentials to communities in fight against Covid-19
Mr. Sitamon Ratanavadi, on behalf of Mr. Sarath Ratanavadi, Chief Executive Officer, Gulf Energy Development plc, said: “GULF is deeply concerned about people in many communities that might face difficulties from the economic impact of this unprecedented pandemic. We hope that these essential supplies will alleviate hardship, especially for those families with people with disabilities, bedridden individuals, the elderly, and young children. Later, community leaders or assigned coordinators can properly distribute the items to people in their community. This also reduces crowding in small areas. Gulf Group is committed to continuing to help and support Thailand in mitigating the impact of Covid-19.”
In the past few months, GULF has supported various sectors in the fight against this pandemic, including donating 10 million baht to the Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, to fund the procurement of medical equipment and expenses to cover the ‘hospitel’, which accommodates Covid-19 patients.
HERMÈS Unveils Its First Digital Flagship Store In Thailand
Hermes.com launched in Thailand on 2nd June 2021. Conceived in the same spirit as Hermès stores, which draw on their creativity and conviviality, as well as their window displays, objects, services and narratives, the new hermes.com website combines e-commerce and content at a single address.
The new website is in touch with the times and the current habits of its contemporaries. Initiated and designed with an omni-channel approach by the house’s specialists, it offers a fluid and pleasant browsing experience.
At hermes.com, you can treat yourself to a long-desired object or stumble upon an unexpected piece as you move from one page to the next. In just a few clicks, visitors can explore the creativity of wide-ranging collections from the house’s sixteen métiers.
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Editorial content – films, photographs and articles – offers deeper insights into Hermès’ worlds. These narratives tell the stories behind the objects, artisans, know-how, workshops, events, materials, artists and fashion shows…
Hermès also shares its commitment to sustainable development, for example through the Empreintes sur le monde (Footsteps across the world) films by Frédéric Laffont1, which reveal the house’s societal and environmental commitments and how its craftsmanship model seeks to have a positive impact on the world. HERMÈS Unveils Its First Digital Flagship Store In Thailand
New content associated with regional events and cultural programmes will also be posted with the aim of strengthening service and visitor experience.
The WTS (Web to Shop) service will also allow customers to purchase objects online and then pick them up at any Hermès store in Bangkok (Central Embassy, Icon Siam or Siam Paragon) and the Hermès store in Phuket, offering both the convenience of online shopping and the Hermès stores experience.
HERMÈS Unveils Its First Digital Flagship Store In ThailandHermes.com combines creativity, authenticity and singularity with the fluidity of an e-commerce website, offering the convenience of online shopping to the region for the first time.
JBS paid $11 million in ransom after hackers shut down meat plants
JBS, the worlds largest meat supplier, confirmed Wednesday that it paid the equivalent of $11 million in ransom to hackers that targeted and temporarily crippled its business.
The company confirmed it made the payment in a statement Wednesday, saying it did so after most of its plants started operating again last week. The company consulted with its own IT workers and external cybersecurity experts, it said, and decided to pay the ransom to make sure no data was stolen.
The payment was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
“This was a very difficult decision to make for our company and for me personally,” JBS USA CEO Andre Nogueira said in a statement.
JBS was the victim of a ransomware attack last week that temporarily halted operations at its nine beef processing plants in the United States and caused disruptions at other facilities. The FBI attributed the attack to a Russian-linked ransomware group known as both REvil and Sodinokibi.
JBS got many of its plants operating again by the end of last week, but the company told the Journal it decided to pay the ransom to lower the consequences for its customers, including farmers and restaurants.
Ransomware attacks have dramatically increased across the country in the past two years, and have recently hit high-profile targets including JBS and major pipeline Colonial Pipeline. The latter caused long lines and gas shortages at the pumps on the East Coast and sent government regulators scrambling to crack down on cybersecurity in both public and private realms.
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Ransomware attacks are generally relatively unsophisticated – hackers often use a tactic called “phishing” by sending employees emails containing suspicious links or attachments. If someone clicks, hackers can gain access to companies’ systems and make their way into valuable databases.
Once inside, cybercriminals will lock down key computer systems and demand a ransom to hand control back to the company. Increasingly, hackers will also demand a payment to stop them from stealing and leaking private company data online.
The attacks can be difficult to guard against because of all the entry points hackers can try to target. Cybercriminals often work together as part of loosely defined ransomware gangs, sharing resources to get as many payments as possible.
JBS said Wednesday that it spends more than $200 million annually on information technology and employs more than 850 IT workers in the world.
The company said experts are still investigating its hack, but preliminary findings suggest no employee or customer data was compromised.
Alibaba kicks off spending spree with $1 billion for cloud
Alibaba Group Holdings cloud division has pledged $1 billion to support startups in Asia, marking one of its largest outlays since the tech giant pledged to boost spending and move past a bruising antitrust investigation at home.
The $1 billion will be the initial funding for Project AsiaForward, which aims to nurture 100,000 developers and tech startups over the next three years, Alibaba said in a statement Tuesday. The company aims to build a million-strong talent pool by providing training for developers, as well as connecting entrepreneurs with venture capital and other opportunities.
Jack Ma’s e-commerce titan said last month it will invest all incremental profits into areas like technology and e-commerce, after Chinese antitrust regulators imposed a record $2.8 billion fine that drove the firm to its first quarterly loss in nine years. Chinese tech giants from Alibaba to Tencent Holdings and Meituan have all pledged to dramatically boost spending, as Beijing’s crackdown on the industry forces companies to find new growth drivers.
“We are seeing a strong demand for cloud-native technologies in emerging verticals across the region, from e-commerce and logistics platforms to fintech and online entertainment,” Jeff Zhang, president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said in the statement. “Our focus on innovation and data center investments, as well as talent development is in anticipation of a digital-first future.”
Alibaba’s cloud business, modeled on Amazon Web Services, grew from the needs of its massive online shopping operation to become one of the e-commerce giant’s biggest growth engines. But its expansion is slowing in the wake of competition from Tencent and Huawei Technologies. Its cloud revenue rose just 37% in the March quarter, the slowest pace since 2014, after a major customer pulled out.
ByteDance’s viral video service TikTok decided to drop Alibaba as a cloud provider during the period and instead relied more on its own inhouse servers and American rivals such as AWS, a person familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified talking about a private decision.
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Alibaba Cloud is opening its first datacenter in the Philippines by the end of this year and will build an innovation center in Malaysia. Currently operating in 75 so-called availability zones in 24 regions, the firm has also launched a third datacenter in Indonesia. It was the No. 3 Infrastructure-as-a-Service, or IaaS cloud provider globally in 2020, behind Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp., according to industry researcher Gartner.
“Our strategic roadmap for APAC includes targeted investments to facilitate the digital transformation of local businesses,” Selina Yuan, general manager of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence’s international business unit, said in the statement. “We see these investments as all the more timely given the impact of the pandemic and the sharp rise in demand for digital business tools.”
Fierce rival Tencent said last week it’s launching four datacenters in Bangkok, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and Tokyo, giving its cloud business a presence in 27 regions worldwide.
Published : June 09, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Coco Liu
The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Index rose by 6.61 points or 0.41 per cent to 1,632.88 at 10am on Thursday. The volume of transactions was THB4 billion with an index high of 1,633.90 and a low of 1,631.75.
Krungsri Securities predicted the SET Index would fluctuate between 1,620 and 1,640 points amid hopes of a Thai economic recovery after mass vaccinations commenced nationwide, and the US bond yield fell.
It also advised investors to follow the US Consumer Price Index in May as this would affect foreign fund flows, adding that the CPI is expected to rise by 4.7 per cent.
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It recommended investors buy:
▪︎ PTT, PTTEP, PTTGC, Top, IVL and Banpu, which would benefit from a global economic recovery.
▪︎ BCH, CHG, BDMS, Mint, Centel, ERW, AOT, CPAll, HMPro, CPN, CRC, AAV, Amata and WHA, which would benefit from the country reopening.
▪︎ KCE, IRPC, STA and STGT, expected to be listed on the SET50 Index in mid-June.
▪︎ AAV, BLA, ICHI, PSL, PTL, Singer, Stark, STGT and Synex, expected to be listed on the SET100 Index in mid-June.
The SET Index closed at 1,626.27 on Wednesday, up 13.39 points or 0.83 per cent. Transactions totalled THB94.10 billion with an index high of 1,628.42 and a low of 1,617.83.
The price of gold dropped by THB50 per baht weight in morning trade on Thursday despite a decline in the US bond yield.
The market is meanwhile keeping an eye on results of May’s US Consumer Price Index.
A Gold Traders Association report at 9.27am showed the buying price of a gold bar at THB27,700 per baht weight and selling price at THB27,800, while gold ornaments cost THB27,197.04 and THB28,300, respectively.
At close on Wednesday, the buying price of a gold bar was THB27,750 per baht weight and selling price THB27,850, while gold ornaments cost THB27,257.68 and THB28,350, respectively.
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The spot gold price on Thursday was US$1,886 (THB58,698) per ounce compared to the price on Wednesday, when it rose by $1.10 to $1,895.50 per ounce.
The Hong Kong gold price on Thursday dropped by HK$60 to $17,490 (THB70,149) per tael, the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society reported.