A good mail received & appreciated -and how I answer.

A mail I received & appreciated -and so decided to share with all here on my response, shown in Italic.

Still enjoying reading some free articles and have learnt a lot reg the Thai market the last couple of years. It seems your company assessments currently does not really work for the “Thai” short sighted mind and where brokers here do not encourage long-term investing but more into day trading.

Thank you for your feedback, you are right on. For many, many years I told Thai brokers, at every occasion, not to culture and nurture the stock market in such a way to retail investors as it will shy away the majority. Which in the past made up well over half the SET trading -but dwindled year after year.   We long know the reasons and this has been shown in hundreds of studies: most day/short term traders loose money over time only to then fold-up and never come back. Then, until the next unsuspecting individual emerges, only to have the similar experience in time…its so like a revolving door.  As you know, I've turned mostly Thai stock bearish -post the Covit-19 rebound in 2022. 

After a while, and sometimes it takes years, just about all real investors are gone.  Not good as the serious big and more responsible money vanishes.  Traders loose and investors give-up as rationality does not prevail. We see this to this very day still, despite the horrific Thai bear market where most just trade DELTA the regular most active stock despite its 68 p/e ratio and near 0 dismal dividend yield.  All the while just about all others dwindles down in mkt. price…. while under reported there has been a tremendous destruction of wealth over the past few years. Horrific. “Bad money chased out the good”.

The performance of AUCT and TOG for now clearly shows this, it doesn’t matter to the Thai market about fundamentals, bear market or not. I guess it worked better before when there was more foreign involvement with similar investment mindset. It has been an expensive lesson for me, learn and live.

Exactly and sad how its not evolving for better despite the 3 year bear market and enduring….this even/despite the superior record dividend yields as compared to bank deposits saving acct. interest paid.  While AUCT/TOG got hit some on US tariffs and slow car mkt., they still are valued at 1/5 or less to the prominent speculative counters.  Very irrational and discouraging and a fact I no longer “fight the tape” on.  I’ve written and got published a number of PostBag letters to the "BKK Post editor" over the past say 2-3 years, but seemingly nothing is changing.  I truly much fault the brokers for their long “failed industry”, but nobody talks about that.

An excellent example of this is your article April 28th below where you mentioned MASTER, however the adjustment wasn’t small, with a drop of 35% in 2 weeks. Reading on forums It seems Thai investors avoid this stock like the plague, it won’t matter what the future results will be it seems.

I only mentioned MASTER in passing while rating it a "nibbling-buy" different then a buy-view,  as the graph seemed it bottomed-out post loosing 2/3 of its value -and is a domestic play and a leader in what it does.  Alas, it only dropped more to 1/5 of its previous price last year, like soo many others. Realize very few even know or follow, as they are not on anybody’s radar screen anymore. Some were screaming buys, but then stopped screaming anymore.  Rational investor got burned and have left in disguise... and the few traders left are busy, "churning and so often burning"  around these top 4-5 over hyped/overpriced liquid big caps.  Sadly for now, I just don’t see any real caveats on hand which would change any of this?  But in the meantime long term, hard core, rational investors keep enjoying, selectively, their very high current dividends.  At least AIT (4.66) woke up last week, post just paying a gigantic 0.40 Baht dividend but only so, because there is a limited tender offer in early June, for 5.20 Baht. (Ask your broker for details if you own it).

Although China goes well now it is not a market I want to be in or trust. I also think China is facing a demographic collapse accelerated by Mr. Trump, problems are just starting to surface.

Yes, long term China is a demographic sinker, but surely so are many/most other countries….yet, China ETF stocks performed very well since I turned broadly bullish back in Feb. 24,  as shown -and XIAOMI was a superstar performer, tripling in price since.  Perhaps you, like many, suffer from Western Mass-media China bashing?  I dare to say: don’t believe near anything one reads/hears in the Western press on China’s "demise".  I of late go all out by claiming its just the opposite: the US is in decline.... as you know I have been a vocal bear on US stocks for a few months already.  Sometime the best investment is the one we avoided nor get/got sucked into.  Time will tell. Hold some cash and Gold, always favorably viewed here. Even with Crypto, or blockchain I never expressed a negative view around that here.

So, it is either the “big’ well known company names for investing in Thailand or the US market which should have had a major correction 2008 style, years ago. Not really thrilling choices.

Yes, it’s a very difficult investor time for sure.  Well, at least the Thai Baht remains a strong currency to those of us which hold it -while here we have 0 or even negative inflation -so this bodes well for the Baht holders.  And of late there even seems to be some positive news on Expat funds remittance for the Thai tax which got axed for now, post months on rightly so whining on this horror. (See BKK Post Letter on this today by a knowledgeable contributor of the past May 24). 

As always feel free to comment!   Best Regards from early morning in the Mist.