Bangkok - Thai shares shed 3.2 per cent of their value Wednesday on ongoing worries about the prospects for financial and oil-related stocks.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) index ended at 605.14, down 19.42 points or 3.2 per cent.

Investors sold heavily in bank stocks, especially Bangkok Bank and Bank Ayuthaya, the most exposed among Thai banks to the Lehman Brothers collapse, brokers said.

Investors also dumped shares in oil-related stocks such as the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT), the national petroleum company, on news that world oil prices are on the decline.

The appointment of Somchai Wongsawat as Thailand's new prime minister Wednesday morning had virtually no impact on the SET, brokers and analysts said.

"Investors aren't looking at politics at all," said Mongkol Puangpaetha, an analyst at Adkinsons Securities. "It's not important."

Somchai is the brother-in-law of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a military coup on September 19,2006, and is currently living in exile with his family in London. dpa