Southeast Asia stocks soft in holiday

Most Southeast Asian stock markets were sluggish in lacklustre trade on Friday ahead of the Chinese new year holiday, as investors failed to capitalise on a global equity markets rally overnight.

A key index of global equity markets hit a near 2-year high on Thursday, not far off from a record high it touched in April 2015.

Overnight on Wall Street, all three major indexes hit life-time intraday highs, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average also closing at a record high after breaching 20,000 on Wednesday.

In Indonesia, the Jakarta SE Composite Index fell, led lower by consumer staples and telecom stocks. The index posted a weekly gain of 1.1%.

Telecommunications provider PT XL Axiata slipped 1.4%, while agribusiness company PT Wahana Pronatural Tbk fell 6.4%.

"Indonesia will be quiet as uncertainties are still lingering," said Dang Maulida, an analyst with Jakarta-based Daewoo Securities.

"It remains to be seen if they are going to tighten the monetary policy. The inflation rate due next week will determine the colour of the market during the first quarter."

Philippines was flat, with gains in telecom stocks offset by losses in real estate shares.

Refiner Petron Corp fell 2.7%, its lowest close in nearly two months.

Singapore ended 0.4% higher, while Malaysia fell 0.4%, in truncated trading in both markets ahead of the Lunar new year holiday.

Vietnam's financial markets are closed from Jan 26 to Feb 1 for a national holiday.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.1%, with several markets closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.