Asean-focused. Ex-Head of Thai Research

Athaporn Arayasantiparb, CFA

Athaporn served as Head of Research for UOB and ANZ in Thailand and was an award-winning telecoms analyst at UBS in 2010 (AsiaMoney Thailand category) and Regional Strategist for DMG in Singapore. Prior to that, he also served as Kasikornbank credit analyst and scholar. He has a total work experience of 22 years, of which 19 were in research and 9 in research management roles. He started his career as an engineer for PTT and currently manages family investments. He holds an MBA from Stern (NYU) and CFA Charter since 2006.

Apart from IPO Radar, which focuses on future listings, MCorp Review also performs financial advisory services for TKC Services and provides 11 other on-going thematic series ranked by frequency in descending order, namely:

1) Snippets (news-driven);
2) Sathorn Series (financial services);
3) Silicon Stories (technology); 
4) Thai-Coons (billionaire origin series);
5) Reality Check (data-driven, investigative);
6) Thai Media Spotlight;
7) Political Pit Stop; 
8) Telecom Review; 
9) Thai Macro Watch (read-through from foreign events);  
10) Small Cap Diary; and
11) Property Grid

There are also 3 limited-time series driven by specific events or locations, namely:
1) Thai Corona Crisis;
2) South Series; and
3) Mechanics and Details (deal forensics).

US Government Shutdown a Short Term Catalyst for Thai Equities

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

We attended two events hosted by the CFA Society of Thailand last week. One was presented by Port Shelter's Richard Harris and the other involved a host of speakers ranging from asset managers (MFS, Pioneer, Allianz, State Street, Bangkok Alliance), regulators in the pension industry, and the private equity firm Hatton. Some interesting notes we observed include:<ul><li>Port Shelter rejects the conventional wisdom that "Cash is King" in an age when central bankers are gerrymandering global money supply and also many things we took for granted like the Phillips curve (relation between inflation and unemployment)</li><li>MFS keeps the faith on active investing under the mantra "Time is Your Best Friend" and observes understably how many pensions evaulate the wrong aspects of returns and alpha (outperformance).</li><li>State Street advocated gold as a hedge given its negative correlation with other asset classes, mentioning that recent returns had not been too bad (around 10% per year).</li><li>Bangkok Capital takes a different view on Trump as the master negotiator of America, saying there are more surprises to come. For them, the inflation-adjusted TIPS appear to be the only credible hedge in uncertain times.</li></ul>Apart from these key ideas, we elaborate some of the smaller observations from the two events.

We attended two events hosted by the CFA Society of Thailand last week. One was presented by Port Shelter's Richard Harris and the other involved a host of speakers ranging from asset managers (MFS, Pioneer, Allianz, State Street, Bangkok Alliance), regulators in the pension industry, and the private equity firm Hatton. Some interesting notes we observed include:Port Shelter rejects the conventional wisdom that "Cash is King" in an age when central bankers are gerrymandering global money supply and also many things we took for granted like the Phillips curve (relation between inflation and unemployment)MFS keeps the faith on active investing under the mantra "Time is Your Best Friend" and observes understably how many pensions evaulate the wrong aspects of returns and alpha (outperformance).State Street advocated gold as a hedge given its negative correlation with other asset classes, mentioning that recent returns had not been too bad (around 10% per year).Bangkok Capital takes a different view on Trump as the master negotiator of America, saying there are more surprises to come. For them, the inflation-adjusted TIPS appear to be the only credible hedge in uncertain times.Apart from these key ideas, we elaborate some of the smaller observations from the two events.

Listed Index Fund JPX-Nikkei Index 400 (1592 JP)

North Bangkok Power Plant Block 1 Infrastructure Fund (EGATIF TB)

North Bangkok Power Plant Block 1 Infrastructure Fund

Black Swans, Paradigm Shifts, and Other Ideas