South-east Asian markets fall, led by Jakarta and Manila

Women walk in front of a screen of the Indonesia Stock Exchange in Jakarta on Aug 28, 2013. Indonesian shares fell to their two-month lows on Wednesday, Nov 13, 2013, as investors cut risk exposure ahead of third-quarter current account data, wh
Women walk in front of a screen of the Indonesia Stock Exchange in Jakarta on Aug 28, 2013. Indonesian shares fell to their two-month lows on Wednesday, Nov 13, 2013, as investors cut risk exposure ahead of third-quarter current account data, while Philippine stocks retreated amid cautions about the impact of the super typhoon Haiyan. -- FILE PHOTO: REUTERS

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Indonesian shares fell to their two-month lows on Wednesday as investors cut risk exposure ahead of third-quarter current account data, while Philippine stocks retreated amid cautions about the impact of the super typhoon Haiyan.

Jakarta's Composite Index was down 1.9 per cent at 4,299.08 after hitting 4,284.03, the lowest since Sept. 10. It had fallen 1.4 per cent on Tuesday after the central bank's unexpected interest rate hike.

Property stocks fell 2.8 per cent, banking shares were down 2 per cent and the blue-chip index slid 2 per cent as investors are worried about the prospect of economic growth after the central bank raised interest rates.

The Philippine main index was down 0.23 per cent after falling as much as 1 per cent, amid weakness in large caps and telecom stocks including Philippine Long Distance Telephone and Globe Telecom. It had gained 0.94 per cent on Tuesday.

Daiwa Capital Markets said the impact of the super typhoon on the telecoms industry should be limited over the medium term. "We do not see significant downside risk to our 2014-15 industry revenue forecasts," said Singapore-based Ramakrishna Maruvada of Daiwa Capital Markets.

Mr Maruvada said the weakness in telecoms shares could be due to concerns about demand for telecoms services. "It could be because of the disaster and the unknown (factors) associated with the impact where people could be worried in terms of what this mean for telecoms demand going forward," he said.

Stocks in Singapore and Malaysia both slipped to four-week lows, while the Vietnam index was around a one-week low amid weakness in Asia and concerns about an imminent rollback of the U.S. central bank's asset-buying stimulus.

The Thai SET index eased 0.6 per cent as political concerns continued to keep investors wary.

Among actively traded shares, Advanced Info Service dropped 2.2 per cent, while Kasikornbank was down 1 per cent.

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