From: kamol@ipied.tu.ac.TH (Kamol Hengkietisak)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: Bangkok Post Nov 20: SET nosedives
Date: 20 Nov 1992 16:36:50 +1100
Organization: Mail/News gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: munnari.oz.au


THE stock market nosedived for a second day while the Bank of 
Thailand yesterday announced new measures to return the market to 
normal as soon as possible.
 
One of the measures is for the central bank to allow commercial 
banks to buy stocks for their portfolios without limit for one 
year, Bank of Thailand Governor Vijit Supinit said.
 
Until now, each commercial bank has been allowed to buy shares for 
its portfolio not exceeding 20% of its capital fund.
 
Mr Vijit said the Bank of Thailand has told the Krung Thai Bank 
that it will inject additional funds in the state-owned bank to 
shore up the stock market if the first 5,000 million baht fails to 
restore normality in the market.
 
He said the Krung Thai Bank began buying a "certain volume" of 
stocks yesterday and will buy more today.
 
Funds totalling 10,000 million baht, to which money will be 
contributed by members of the stock market (authorised brokers), 
will be established soon.
 
"The Bank of Thailand has told commercial banks to help provide 
liquidity for these finance companies if they need it and, if they 
are still short, the central bank will provide them with more 
funds," Mr Vijit said.
 
Mr Vijit said the Stock Exchange of Thailand and the Securities 
and Exchange Commission are jointly considering an increase in the 
loan margin rate from 50% to boost market liquidity.
 
The SET index meanwhile tumbled by another 33.87 points to close 
at 834.17.
 
The prime gauge has lost 57.32 points or 6.43% in two days since 
the SEC decided to take legal action against Song Watcharasriroj 
on share manipulation charges.
 
The market started to lose last week when reports were spread that 
the SEC would take action against certain alleged share 
manipulators.
 
In nine consecutive trading days, the prime indicator lost 124.91 
points or 13.02%.
 
Mr Vijit said the Bank of Thailand has unlimited funds to inject 
into the money market since the SEC decided to take legal action 
against Mr Song and his associates.
 
"We are ready to inject unlimited funds to financial institutions 
which need money and the central bank has also asked major 
commercial banks to help inject money into financial companies," 
he said.
 
Despite the measures taken, stock analysts expect the market to 
remain nervous because of lingering rumours that the authorities 
might move against other major investors on share manipulation 
charges.
 
However, SEC secretary-general Ekamol Khiriwat said the SEC does 
yet not have any plan to take other moves.
 
Rumours spread widely on the stock market yesterday of further 
arrests and that some financial companies face ruin by heavy 
withdrawals.
 
"These are all groundless," Mr Ekamol said.
 
Mr Vijit said there have been no "irregular moves" among financial 
institutions. 
 
"I also heard that depositors had rushed to withdraw money from 
First City Investment & Trust Co, but after checking we found 
nothing unusual," Mr Vijit said.
 
The FCI's major shareholder is Khunying Patcharee Wongpaithoon. 
The company's stock price has also reportedly been manipulated by 
a certain group of investors.
 
Meanwhile enraged investors gathering in groups at the Stock 
Exchange of Thailand yesterday morning to vent their frustration 
over the stock market's plunge demanded the resignation of SET 
president Seri Chintanaseri for his alleged mishandling of the 
latest crisis.
 
Scores of investors began gathering in groups in front of the SET 
president's office at around 10 a.m. and demanded that Mr Seri 
meet them to explain what action was being taken to restore 
investors' confidence.
 
One of the enraged protesters told Business Post that throughout 
the crisis during the last few days, Mr Seri had not made any 
public appearance either on television or to meet investors to 
explain the situation.
 
After Mr Seri failed to show up to meet the protesters, some of 
the more emotionally-disturbed protesters began shouting abuses 
and demanded his resignation.
 
The protesters numbering more than 100 dispersed about one hour 
later.
 
Mr Seri did appear on TV late Wednesday night when he promised a 
restructuring of the SET operational system to improve efficiency 
which included, among other things, the creation of two new 
assistant president positions.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai