Worswick, I like TISCO in Hong Kong because they're more convenient and only marginally more expensive than using brokers locally in Bangkok and Jakarta. TISCO in Bangkok is a little cheaper, and the only local firm I could find there that would take my business and that had experience dealing with foreign retail (as opposed to institutional) investors. In Jakarta, there are a lot of local firms that will take your business -- just about everyone I talked too.
The convenience of using TISCO in Hong Kong comes from being able to have a U.S. dollar account. I wire them U.S. dollars. When I purchase a Thai stock, they convert my U.S. dollars to baht at a very competitive exchange rate. They'll do the same for Indonesian stocks, except that the exchange rate is NOT competitive for small transactions. But they will buy Indonesian rupiah for me from Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, in larger quantities at a more competitive forex rate, that I can then use to buy Indonesian stocks. There's also the convenience factor. You can admittedly save a little money by opening an account locally in every market you intend to trade, but having visited various cities in southeast Asia to look at this angle, it would be a hassle.
I don't own any shares in Mutual Fund Public Company. I visited with someone a few weeks ago, Paul Renaud, who has looked at the company and who thought it was undervalued, but not a stock that he would recommend buying. Paul has a web site I mentioned in post#389, www.thaistocks.com, and he might provide you some insight into MFPC if you E-mail him. I know he would if you're a subscriber to his service.
As far as the various mutual funds that MFPC runs, I would definitely recommend you look at those in preference to the two closed end Thai funds that you can buy in the U.S. I haven't really looked into MFPC's funds, but they manage a lot and I think some are closed end funds that sell at a discount to NAV. I can't understand why anyone would pay a 40% premium to NAV to buy a U.S. closed end fund, when you can buy one of the MFPC funds, or buy stocks directly on the Stock Exchange of Thailand.
In U.S. dollar terms, I think the bottom in Thailand is behind us. The exchange rate is competitive and the current account balance is positive. I'm staying away from the financial companies and companies with appreciable amounts of debt, and am still able to find companies that look cheap. |
