SE Asia Stocks: Shares fall amid Greek political turmoil
BANGKOK, May 16 – Shares in Philippines and Malaysia suffered their biggest daily loss in seven months today as equity markets in southeast Asia followed a broad global selloff, touched off by worries that the euro zone’s debt crisis would worsen.
The Philippine index finished down 2.3 per cent at 4,864.23 while Malaysia’s main share index ended down 1.6 per cent at 1,536.04.
Fears of a Greek exit from the euro zone gripped financial markets and traders warned of further weakness ahead.
“Our base case is that, we think it’s a short term risk, we expect euro to be supported later on and you will still see weakness for a few weeks on the global market,” said CIMB regional strategist Chang Chiou Yi.
“Southeast Asia had outperformed, especially for markets like the Philippines and Thailand. So these markets tend to see more fallout ... This short term risk aversion could continue for a week or so,” she said. – Reuters
