Foreign ownership in Thai stocks drops to 4.4 trillion baht

The distribution of investors in Thailand remains relatively diversified, despite a decrease in domestic retail investors’ share from 50% to 30-35% over the past decade. 

This has been offset by a rise in foreign investor participation, while institutional and fund investors have seen their share fall to 10-12%.

A recent study by the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) research team focused on foreign ownership in the Thai stock market, including both SET and the Market for Alternative Investment (MAI). 

Using data up to June 2025, the report found that 854 listed companies had a total market capitalisation of 13.43 trillion baht, representing 97.89% of the total market capitalisation. Foreign investors held 4.43 trillion baht worth of Thai stocks, or 32.99% of the total market capitalisation.

In comparison, at the end of 2024, foreign investors owned stocks worth 5.84 trillion baht, or 33.82% of the total market capitalisation. The decline of 1.41 trillion baht, or 24.13%, was mainly due to two factors: 


A decline in stock prices, reflected by a 22.19% drop in the SET Index.
Net sales by foreign investors in the first half of 2025 amounting to 78.68 billion baht.
The delisting of certain companies from the market.
However, in July 2025, stock prices began to recover, leading to an increase in sector indices across all industries. Foreign investors returned to net buying with a total of 16.12 billion baht in July 2025, marking their first net purchase in 10 months since September 2024.

When examining foreign ownership by industry, foreign investors saw a decrease in their holdings across all sectors, consistent with the decline in stock prices. 

Despite this, the top three sectors remained unchanged: technology continued to have the highest foreign ownership, followed by the financial sector and the services sector. These three industries accounted for 3.34 trillion baht, or 75.39% of the total foreign holdings.

The technology sector remained the most heavily invested by foreign investors, with 1.85 trillion baht in holdings, down 31.23% from the previous year. This decline was primarily due to falling stock prices in listed companies, with the technology sector's price index down 22.41%. 

The financial sector followed, with 887.43 billion baht, a 9.81% decrease, and the services sector, with 598.72 billion baht, a 28.80% decrease. The price index of the services sector saw the largest drop among all industries, down 32.58% from the previous year, particularly in the transport and logistics sectors, where stock prices fell more than 40%.

When analysing foreign ownership by sector in the Thai stock market, covering 27 sectors (including the MAI), the top three industries by foreign investment were electronics (ETRON), banking (BANK), and information and communication technology (ICT). These sectors accounted for 2.61 trillion baht, or 58.97%, of total foreign holdings. 

Specifically, the electronics sector led with 1.21 trillion baht, representing 27.48% of total foreign holdings, followed by banking with 758.95 billion baht (17.14%), and ICT with 635.47 billion baht (14.35%).

Additionally, comparing foreign ownership in listed companies against the MSCI Thailand Index, foreign investors held all the constituent stocks of the index, with total holdings of 3.23 trillion baht, or 72.9% of total foreign ownership. 

This share has decreased since August 2024, due to the exclusion of some large companies from the index during the study period. This has resulted in foreign investors with tracking index strategies either selling stocks or continuing to hold them, even though these stocks are no longer part of the index and have seen a decline in prices.

By June 2025, 124 nationalities of foreign investors held stocks in the Thai market, an increase of two from the previous year. 

The top 10 foreign investor nationalities held a combined total of 4.30 trillion baht, accounting for 97.1% of all foreign holdings. Of these, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Hong Kong continued to be the largest investors, holding 67.2% of the total foreign ownership in the Thai stock market.

The rankings of the top 10 countries remained unchanged from the previous year. The UK remained the largest foreign investor, holding stocks in 815 companies, valued at 1.29 trillion baht, or 29.2% of total foreign holdings.

Singapore followed with holdings in 783 companies, valued at 1.22 trillion baht, or 27.6%, and Hong Kong with 399 companies, valued at 458.66 billion baht, or 10.4%. 

Switzerland and the US rounded out the top five, holding 310.27 billion baht (7.0%) and 299.88 billion baht (6.8%) respectively.

The sixth to 10th positions are held by investors from the Netherlands, Japan, Taiwan, France, and Mauritius, respectively.

(2025/08/20-00:00)