Updates!

I began investing in January 2010- did well up to the red shirts buying and selling on daily/weekly basis. After the violence, my portfolio dropped 14% but is back 'up' to -5% today. Overall ,because i got excellent dividend payments, I am up 7,200 US$ since January. A 9% profit which i am surprised at given the global stock market mini drops of the last month plus the red shirt fiasco.

Good news and bloody annoying news

Good news first. Today my portfolio increased up +15,200 baht. PTTCH increased 3.5 baht in price as some of their projects were cleared to go ahead in Ma Ta Pud.

Bloody annoying news- after selling THAI 3 days ago, its increased 7% since then. Ugh. Well lesson learned is to be abit more patient as i saw it increased a bit on the day i sold it .

MY LPN and KBANK buys are now up more than 5%- previously i had planned to sell- but now two factors are making me hold on to them:
1) Im relying more now on MACD and RSI to guide me i.e. im waiting until they both give me sell signals before selling the stock.
2) They both should be paying tasty dividends: LPN 4.9 % in a couple of weeks, KBANK hasnt announced anything yet but traditionally pays relatively high divds.

Noble Remix v Siri@Suk: take your corners please

I visited noble remix yesterday- rooms are slightly bigger than Siris@suk and there is more windowage which makes the rooms brighter. Remix has 60sqm corner 1 brs (6-7 million baht) , and the bed room has amazing views overlooking the bts and on towards emporium. One worry is that the west looking rooms over look a largely empty plot of land and the possiblity of another condo going up and blocking the view (and crippling the units value) is real. Remix also has 54 sqm rooms for about 5.5-6 million baht. Siri 1 br are 6.5-7.5 million baht)

In the blue corner: Siri@Suk
Pool/gym is better in Siri , amazing in fact- on the 6th floor, landscape gardens, large pool, gym..like any 5 star hotel in bangkok.

Siri is a grade A building, Remix is A-

Siri rooms also come with fitted kitchen (remix not).

In the red corner,iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiits Noble Remix
....the possible last minute knock out ..Remix will have a direct bridge connection from the 2nd floor to the BTS Thong Lor. I think this connection will be a huge selling point when looking for potential tenants....and the rooms are larger than siri...

What to do.....???

"One ticket to Rally-Ville please"

Well its been a surprising monday and tuesday- despite the political instability my Thai portfolio has almost broken even (after being down 11% last week); its only down 0.2%!!

In fact, if i sold my stocks that have risen in price id take almost 1000 $ or 33,000 baht and still have the principal amount that i invested in them in the last 2 weeks.

Today i sold my THAI stocks as the company does not have the fundamentals (it was a heart- not head buy for me), but I will keep my eye on it because i think later in the year it will push up 20-40% in price given the new CEO's sound decisions so far (including reducing the age of the Thai stewardesses- great move aesthetically and also will attract more business men travellers (and compete with Singapore Airs excellent ad campaign ("Singapore girl, you are a good way to shag/fly"). I sold at a tiny profit (6$) but the point was to move funds into a stock more likely to rise in the short term (LANNA, number 1 on my watch list).

TTA is preforming well, increased 3.5% in the two days since i bought it due to the increasing Baltic Dry Index price (which measures the price of shipping- the higher the BDI is, the more shipping companies, like TTA, get when they transport goods).

KBANK is also increasing, i think because of all the analyst reports of the last few days that have noted that its undervalued and a good buy (JP Morgan, Credit Suiss, SCBS etc).

I was tempted to sell LPN today wehn is increased 8% for me at one point but their dividend XD date is march 3rd and its close to 5% so ill hold on......its RSI and MACD lines are also still radiating strong buy signals when i looked at them just now..... (RSI and MACD tools- i love these puppies- well worth googling them if you invest in stocks)

PTL which i bought last week has been abit of a sleeper....

Buy KBANK!

Ok..i just asked my broker to buy KBANK. Why?

• Multiple buy recommendations from large investment banks
• The MACD line just indicated a buy signal plus the RSI is trending towards a buy signal.
• KBANK has decreased 9% in last month, a good buying op in my in my opinion.
  

News from the Big Apple

Spoke to a friend of mine who works in an emerging markets unit for one of the world's largest investment banks in New York last night. For what its worth, the only Thai stock they have bought is KBANK. KBANK also has half a dozen other big US/European shareholders.

Its is one of my top medium term growth stock recommendations (target price of 120 baht plus by end of year/ early next plus good dividend payments).

Top 10 Dividend Yielding Thai Companies

Dividend announcement - Sorted by Yield. Sorry i am too bone idle lazy to format this and make it look pretty!

Price (Bt) Rating DPS (Bt) Current XD date Payment date

18-Feb-10 yields Period 2010F 2011F 2010F 2011F
ADVANC 88.25 UR 8.30 9.4% 12-Apr-10 30-Apr-10 01/07/2009-31/12/2009 6.35 6.54 7.2% 7.4%
BLS 11.40 Sell 1.00 8.8% 26-Apr-10 14-May-10 01/01/2009-31/12/2009 0.70 0.72 6.1% 6.3%
GFM 11.50 - 1.00 8.7% 04-May-10 24-May-10 01/01/2009-31/12/2009 - - n.a. n.a.
KEST 11.70 Sell 1.00 8.5% 23-Feb-10 12-Apr-10 01/07/2009-31/12/2009 0.89 0.90 7.6% 7.7%
CSL 3.26 - 0.27 8.3% 12-Apr-10 04-May-10 01/07/2009-31/12/2009 - - n.a. n.a.
TBSP 57.25 - 4.50 7.9% 31-Mar-10 23-Apr-10 01/01/2009-31/12/2009 - - n.a. n.a.
PRIN 2.26 - 0.15 6.6% 25-Feb-10 21-May-10 01/01/2009-31/12/2009 - - n.a. n.a.
TPAC 8.45 - 0.56 6.6% 13-May-10 27-May-10 01/01/2009-31/12/2009 - - n.a. n.a.
EASTW 4.50 - 0.25 5.6% 23-Mar-10 05-Apr-10 01/01/2009-31/12/2009 - - n.a. n.a.
GFPT 45.00 - 2.50 5.6% 05-Apr-10 06-May-10 01/01/2009-31/12/2009 - - n.a. n.a.

Quiet weekend, rough week?

Thaksins money confiscation trial ends this week- the SET is likely to drop, and wipe out my modest gains last week- but not a big enough fall to warrant selling now (i think, but we shall see!).

relative strength index (RSI) update

Just to elaborate on my earlier post on RSI....One of the primary indicators I use for entering/exiting a stock is RSI.

A RSI value below 30 is considered oversold. A Buy signal is the RSI crossing up through the 30 line. A cross above the 50 line would be bullish and a cross above the 70 line would indicate an even stronger trend.

A cross below the 70 line is a sell signal. A cross below the 50 line indicates a bearish signal. A cross back below the 30 line and the stock is oversold once again.

Suppose you buy a stock just as the RSI (considering only the RSI in this case) crosses above the 30 line. You should hold for a sell signal. If the RSI fails and crosses back below the 30 line, that would be a sell signal. If the trend continues and crosses the 50 line, you hold for a sell signal. A cross back below the 50 line would be a sell signal. If the RSI fluctuates between the 50 and 70 lines, continue holding until the RSI crosses below the 50 line. Once the RSI crosses above the 70 line, hold until it crosses below the 70 line.

Condos: Siri at Sukhumvit versus Noble Remix

Friday saw a small increase in the price of TTA- only 100$ or so but its always nice when a stock you just bought increases (rather than drops as per usual). THAI is also seeing slight increases. Overall my portfolio would be positive now if it weren't for KBANK- ironically the stock i thought was going to be the 'safe' one- its down 10%, but all the experts are predicting a big increase over the course of the year with target prices over 110 or so (its currently at 80) so i'm not too worried.

I spent alot of time over the last year since arriving in Bangkok looking at condos to buy. initially i was going to get a 3 bedroom and put all my savings into that but finally i decided to go for a 1 br instead and put the left over into stocks. IM looking for 1 br, with 5 mins walk of BTS, new building (not more than 5 years old), good pool and gym, a good company (SIRI being my first choice).

Ive narrowed it down in Siri at Sukhumvit and Noble Remix- both just opened and both within 50 meters of BTS Thong Lor. Siri has the best gym/pool ive seen in any Bkk condo,Remix is probably the 2nd best ive seen (i was surprised how bad the pools/gyms are in so many high end condos even along sukhumvit 24).

The quality of Siri is outstanding but the 1 br are abit too small- 50sqm. Remix have 60 sqm corner 1 br, i will be seeing one for the first time on Monday.

Even though im buying to rent out, my key buying criteria is that i must want to live there my self- which means the siri 1 br is probably not my final choice given their small size rooms...

Price is 6-7 million baht for 1 br in both condos- potential rental price would be @ 35,000 baht i think; i am aiming for about 1,000US$ per month rental income after maintenance. About a 6% return.

Ill review again once ive seen the 1 br next week in Remix.

Insider's secret...

The technical definition of the Relative Strengthen (RS) Index is "A technical momentum indicator that compares the magnitude of recent gains to recent losses in an attempt to determine overbought and oversold conditions of an asset."

In practice its a horizontal line on a graph that goes up and down within two fixed bands above and below...when it touches the upper band its time to sell the stock..when it hits the lower band- its time to buy the stock. If you line up this RS line with the price of the stocks it follows an almost almost identical pattern give or take...i.e. historically peak prices does occur when the RS line hits the upper band (at that point the price always falls) and the lowest points in a stocks price occur when RS line hits the bottom band (at that point the price always rises).

Caveat emptor.....

The RS lines for TTA and PTL- the 2 stocks i bought yesterday- both are almost touching the lower band- hence this indicates that the price will increase in the coming days...lets see.

Ill put some screen shots on later to show the RS line- most online stock portfolio management systems will have the option to add the RS line to your stock price graph.

10K

Portfolio is down 4% today, not bad..recovering from about -11% last week.

I have 10K in reserve and am mulling where to put it..

.....KBANK is top of the list so far. Good report today from credit swiss, low PE ratio but increasing earnings, profits- their target price is 105 baht (its 79 today) for end of year...plus its gone down 10% in last 2 weeks . So i think ill wait to see if its going lower before buying- its relative strength index is halfway between buy and sell, so that's no guide...

...LANNA is top of my watch list, so that's another option.

.......ADVANC has announced 9% dividend payments for next month, so might buy now to get that (though the price may go down at the payment date to factor in the dividend price)

Ill hold the 10K for now..

Value vs Growth stocks

Growth stocks are those with increasing sales, profit, EPS, ROE and rising share price. The idea here is to identify these proven stocks and buy into them when they are already on the way up. My growth stocks in Thailand: KBANK, LPN, PTTCH. KBANK and PTTCH i expect to pay good dividends too.

Value stocks are 'bargains' stocks with low prices that are strong fundamentally but are currently undervalued for whatever reason, you buy at the low price and hope they increase when the rest of the market catches up with your brilliance by seeing what a great stock it actually is.

My main value stock is Thai airways (THAI)- i just bought it- its at a low price historically and i see the new CEO as already making some very good decisions to turn the company around and i bet that tourism picks up. Another value stock that i think could be on the verge of increasing is TTA shipping- it recently dropped 20% in price but has good cash in hand and is undervalued i think (price to book value looks good) - (but there is likely to be oversupply in shipping capacity globally later this year so i think the time to buy is now - there may be an upswing in price in the next 1-3 months (before oversupply of shipping capacity hits the market) as china may increase its iron ore imports and if Greece is bailed out there may be a general bullish sentiment that lifts shipping trade. The Baltic Dry Index which measures the price of shipping goods also increased by 2% today making TTA (a shipping company) more likely to increase.

The key to making it work in stock trading- i think- i hope -is to know before hand when you want to sell....so...my rule is if a stock increases 5-6 % i sell..then if the stock increases further by another 2% i buy into it again hoping it will increase further...if not then i buy into the next stock on my watch list . I figure a 5% return is pretty good these days. Both my PTTCH and LPN stocks increased 5% in one day soon after i bought them last month. At the time though (before i had come up with my sell room) i dithered and they ended up dropping and losing that 5% in less than a day!..so i lost out...

My final stock is PTL- interestingly this came up as a pick using both value and growth criteria, so i bought it to see if it has some extra mojo because of that.

My investment strategy

First things first, my assets available for investment in Thailand are:

• 210,000 US$ cash
• My current Thai stock portfolio that i bought in January, February 2010 can be seen if you click on the screen shot below. I invested 40,000 US$ in KBANK (10K), THAI (5K), LPN (10K), PTL (5K), TTA (5K), PTTCH (5K):

Portfolio is down 4% today, which is not bad given that i bought most of these just before the global correction that happened in the last 2 weeks- the portfolio was down 10% just a few days ago). I think we have turned the corner now given probable EU bailout of Greece and better economic indicators in the US- hence today i bought TTA and PTL.

My other assets for investment:

• 50,000US$ in a BRIC mutual fund managed by HSBC that i bought into 2 years ago; currently down 8% since then which is not bad i think given i bought just before the global meltdown.
• 4,400 US$ in the Indonesian stock exchange invested in CPRT (Ciputra properties). In fact i bought those today after selling BUMI and ANTM which i bought last year and have since watched drop by more than 50% in value- yup, I took a 5,600 US$ loss on this. As i say on the top of this blog-there is plenty of 'trial and tribulation' to go round. In my defense, i bought BUMI, ANTM on a whim after reading one newspaper article (lesson learned: you need to research before you buy- D'oh).

So this is what i have to work with. My investment strategy to invest in the Thai stock exchange and also buy a condo in Bangkok to rent out.

Should I use a financial advisor?

Answer to self- no. I stay well clear of most no-name investment companies with expat staff based in Thailand. Sure signs that the company is a rip off shop or just not capable of giving good investment advice:

1) The expat investment advisor staff are not on a salary, they are paid by commission to sell the companies investment 'product'.

2) The investment advisers are former English teachers. Nothing wrong with being a former English teacher, you just don't want serious investment advice from one.

3) The investment products they offer are weird or unorthodox and not offered by any of the big financial investment institutions (HSBCs, Goldman Sachs, banks etc of this world), typical products include plots of land that are divided up among investors, student accommodation in UK etc.

and the big red flag...
4) they cold call you offering you investment advice.

If they meet any of the above, stay well away.

My advice would be to stick to the big global companies or read up yourself with the right books, mags, newspapers