Set Has Enough Liquidity For Trading Of New Shares

[george]

SET has enough liquidity for trading of new shares

BANGKOK: -- The Stock Exchange of Thailand has sufficient liquidity to accommodate trading of new shares of many companies including major state enterprises to be listed late this year, according to SET’s Senior Executive Vice President Sophavadee Lertmanaschai.

She said 35 companies had so far submitted filings of share listing on SET with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Other 70 firms planned to follow suit.

It is expected a lot of companies including state enterprises like the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, CAT Telecom Plc, and TOT Corporation Plc would be listed on SET in the second half of this year.

Still, she believed, the listing of many firms would not affect trading of shares of existing firms because the liquidity in the stock market remained sufficient.

She said investors needed not sell off all shares to subscribe new ones. What they should do was to monitor the overall market condition and see how large newly-listed companies are.

“It is projected the listing of new companies will attract more new-face investors into the market. Currently, there are 420,000 trading accounts in the Thai bourse. We sets a target to increase the number to 500,000 by the end of this year.”

Ms Sophavadee added SET planned to discuss with SEC ways to deal with the concentration of the initial public offering (IPO) of new shares in the third quarter of this year.

--TNA 2005-06-06