Investor Shoots Self At Thai Exchange

An investor who went bankrupt playing the stock market pulled a gun Wednesday in the lobby of the Stock Exchange of Thailand and shot himself in the neck.

“My blood will help clean the stock market,” Vivat Srisammasheap, 49, said later at Police General Hospital.

The hospital wouldn’t discuss his condition. A nurse said the bullet passed through Vivat, but television reports said doctors removed it and he appeared to be recovering.

Vivat was among a group of 70 to 80 investors who protested outside the exchange president’s office Wednesday, demanding changes in rules to boost stock prices that are at their lowest level in six months.

The other investors left to deliver their demands to Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa, but Vivat pulled a gun. An exchange official spoke to him through a bullhorn as the exchange president made his way to the lobby.

“But he didn’t wait,” said a spokesman for the stock exchange.