Bargain hunters eyeing beaten down Thai shares should hold their fire for now as the political turmoil might be different from previous episodes, analysts said.
The benchmark SET index shed 0.6 percent to 1223.00 midday Friday, after dropping 5.2 percent Thursday, for an around 16 percent drop since protests began in late October. The baht has lost around 6 percent of its value against the dollar since the beginning of October, trading around 33.00, its weakest since early 2010.
Foreign investors pulled around 194 billion baht, or $6 billion, from Thai shares in 2013, reversing the inflows of the last four years, noted Douglas Clayton, managing partner of Leopard Capital.
(Read more: In Thailand, rallying cry is against too much democracy)
Thai anti government protesters ride motorcycle past barricades as they rally at Government House in Bangkok on January 2, 2014.Pornchai Kittiwongsakul | AFP | Getty Images
"It's likely to get worse before it gets better. It's a real standoff," Clayton told CNBC. "There's not much more foreign money that can pull out, but the market can drift down further on bad sentiment if the political situation is not resolved."
(Read more: Why Thailand's politicalstrife is far from over)
Thailand is no stranger to political turmoil, but while its springy stock market usually makes a quick recovery, there are few signs of a resolution on the horizon.
"The situation here in Bangkok continues to be tense and murky because we don't know how bad the protests are going to be," Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University, told CNBC.
