My view going into the New Year 2005.
"Buy today, sell today…never pay, just play, play, play" an old pervasive SET maxim.
In Hollywood California they have an old saying that "you are only as good as your last movie".
Many people, wrongly so, think the same way when it comes to investment managers. Its" not fair because one can perform very well for years, then have a difficult year, or make a wrong call and hops-ola, the clients or followers just forget much or all of the good, and only dwells on the bad. This even while the broader results as viewed over many years, remain rather impressive -and well above average.
This has been a bit our own experience here last year with a few members choosing to just look at year 2004 -and forgetting that which was delivered for many years before and well before stellar year 2003. Many chose not to invest when times are troubling but then get overly exited when the markets have rallied already. Its about buy low and sell high, not buy high with the hope to sell higher. Also, long term rational value investors (the group we are in) are not too disturbed by one year which resulted in giving some profits back, especially so if the dividend payment remain in tact or rise. Further, every time a stock rose in the past I wrote "take some profits". Yet, on Ticon shares I would hold out for more.
I think members whom got on the Ticon super bullish wagon in late October as I pounded the table on, had an OK year and those who missed it should only blame themselves. While I wrote up others stocks favorably on December 15 "04, i.e. HMPRO and BH, (combined they are up about 7% since), I remain of the view that Ticon should keep producing superior results going into the first half of this year.
***
I think Prime Minister Taksin will now benefit from the "big disaster wave hitting the west coast Thailand horror",....people will see that he did/doing an excellent job during this latest crisis and will so forget some of the various shortcomings of last year. Call it human nature. Hence he will run up to the election like a sort of new Hero (somewhat deserved as many know I have always been a mild Taksin fan) and so then win again in a big way in February "05. This is SET bullish, in my view.
My opinion now is that the Thai stock market (absent of any more disasters) will rally into this -and until Thai election time, next month. After that it will be more difficult and less predictable? Some of the many old issues will come back to haunt. Just now we are at a critical point -as the SET has for the past year always turned back, after hitting 670-680 level. I think this time, this month the index may well have the strength to move beyond this major resistance and then 800 is not so long off. (Of course, as always I could be wrong).
Best Wishes for a Happy, Healthy and Wealth Creating New Year,
Paul A. Renaud.
