Time for an update -- I've been trading stocks on the local exchange in Thailand for about a year now, and have a few insights.
First, I've come to trust the integrity of the market a lot more than I did at first. The reason -- the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). They are tough regulators, and tend to stick up for minority shareholders. A good example is CIRKIT. Insiders recently tried to get the company to guarantee loans to affiliates of the insiders. The SET wouldn't let them get away with it. If a company is late in filing a financial statement, the SET stops trading. And the computer-matching system used by the SET to execute trades is a lot fairer than the market-maker or specialist system. Actually, the NASD looks like a bunch of shady characters by the side of the SET.
Second, it's not so difficult to keep up with stocks from the U.S. The SET's web site, set.or.th, provides quarterly financial statements, with notes, for all companies, like the SEC's EDGAR. Look at "News" on the web page, and enter the ticker symbol for the company you're interested in. You can get quotes at the same web site. Annual reports and "Form 56-1", the equivalent of our Form 10-K, are available at the library of the SET.
Third,there are some real bargains. It's gotten to where a company with a P/E ratio of 5 and good growth potential doesn't excite me anymore. And the the bargains haven't disappeared with the improvement in the market that's occurred over the last few months. The sell-side analysts tend to concentrate on the larger, more liquid companies. There are better buys to be found in small and mid cap issues. An excellent resource for the small and mid caps is Paul Renaud's web site, thaistocks.com. He has a talent for identifying companies that are both dirt cheap in terms of value and that also have good growth potential. Renaud also knows the people who own the companies. In Asia, if you don't know the people behind the company, you can get burned, as happened to me in Indonesia once, but that's another story. |
