By Yvonne Cheong
SINGAPORE, March 14 (Reuters) - Southeast Asian stocks
ended mixed on Friday, despite a positive Standard & Poor's
report on the subprime crisis, with the Indonesian bourse
leading the losers with a 10 percent slump for the week.
The top rating agency said the end of subprime-related
write-downs was in sight, but analysts said investors remained
jittery.
"The credit agencies never got this right and frankly, no
one trusts them," said Jay Moghe, Managing Director at Opes
Prime Asset Management in Singapore, pointing to their initial
endorsement of the risky asset-backed securities, which caused
the crisis in the first place.
Singapore and Thailand were the only two gainers. The
city-state's index .FTSTI rose 1.19 percent, while Thailand
.SETI edged up 0.46 percent. Indonesia .JKSE fell 2.34
percent, led by bank stocks, bringing the week's losses to 10
percent.
The Philippines index .PSI declined 1.15 percent, dragged
down by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co's (TEL.PS) 4
percent fall, while Vietnam eased 0.59 percent.
In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian shares .KLSE slid 0.54
percent, led by losses at builders such as IJM Corp (IJMS.KL),
which shed 5.3 percent. UEM World UEMW.KL and Gamuda
(GAMU.KL) also declined 3.6 and 3.2 percent respectively. The
Malaysian bourse is down 7.9 percent for the week.
Losses were more muted at plantation giants IOI Corp
(IOIB.KL), which fell 1.4 percent, and Sime Darby (SIME.KL),
which lost half a percent.
"The market was struggling even yesterday. On the local
front, the news flow has not been encouraging after the
elections," said a KL-based dealer, referring to post-election
uncertainty in the country after the ruling party lost its
two-thirds stranglehold on parliament last Saturday.
Rising fuel oil prices also hit airline shares. Malaysia
Airlines (MASM.KL) tumbled 2.8 percent, while Singapore
Airlines (SIAL.SI) fell by 2.1 percent.
But most other Singapore index stocks rose. Developer
CapitaLand (CATL.SI) climbed 2.7 percent, while bourse operator
Singapore Exchange (SGXL.SI) rebounded 2 percent after falling
nearly 10 percent on Thursday.
Propping up the Thai index were energy and bank stocks such
as PTT Exploration and Production (PTTE.BK), which rose 1.3
percent, and Bangkok Bank BBL.BK, which climbed 2.4 percent.
Meanwhile, government intervention helped arrest the
30-percent slump in Vietnam stocks so far this year. The index
ended 3 points higher for the week.
"Foreign investors are even happier, looking for bargains,"
said Lawrence Kook, co-founder of Maxford Investment
Management. "From this point on, local investors are more
confident."
(Additional reporting by Saeed Azhar and Grant McCool,
Editing by Jennifer Tan)
