SINGAPORE: Southeast Asian stock markets fell on Tuesday as the Singapore index touched a four-month low ahead of May manufacturing output data while Thai shares hit three-week lows as falling consumer prices made the market wary of the interest rate outlook.
Singapore’s Straits Times Index traded down 1.22%, having hit 3,344.66, the lowest since January 21.
Investors awaited factory activity data for May after a decline in April to the lowest in more than two years.
Among top losers, shares of lender DBS Group Holdings shed 2%, heading for a fifth day of weakness amid weak lending data.
The Thai SET index was down 0.9% at 1,482.94, the lowest since May 12, with shares of banks, seen as proxy for the domestic economy, down 1.3%.
The Commerce Ministry said the country’s annual consumer price index declined for a fifth straight month in May due to lower energy prices, echoing expectations of a likely interest rate cut by the Bank of Thailand in coming meetings, brokers said.
“Investors are waiting for the MPC meeting on June 10 as the MPC’s decision on the one-day repurchase rate will affect baht versus dollar movement,” broker Maybank Kim Eng Securities said in a report.
