Peter, my experiences with Paul Renaud, thaistocks.com, were very good. Paul has a wealth of knowledge, having lived and invested in Thailand for years. His investing style is similar to mine -- we both like to buy small, quality companies at cheap prices. His picks have done extremely well. He made some excellent calls since the devaluation of the baht, buying companies with a large percentage of revenues from exports. I am a subscriber, and can recommend his service wholeheartedly. One comment about the exporters, a number of which have increased in price by well over 100% -- they may have already made their move. If the baht stays undervalued, I think they will continue to do well, but not as well as the last six months, obviously.
I tried to borrow shares in the closed end Indonesia and Thailand funds listed on the NYSE, thinking I would short the funds and go long the stocks, back when premiums to NAV were 60-100%, so transaction costs weren't as much of a problem as they are now. Your way, going long a fund, would be simpler. But I couldn't borrow the shares. I have to admit I didn't try really hard -- I only tried three or four days, with two brokerage firms. Have you had any luck borrowing the shares? Which firm did you use?
Have you checked into buying offshore investment trusts? I've heard that a lot don't want American individuals as investors, because the fund companies can run into problems with the SEC. Do you know if this is true? Who would you go through to buy units? |
