XGM

My questions were indeed very basic and yet you did your best to dodge them. Low valuation is advantageous when the inherent reasons leading to it change at some point during your investment horizon. If they don't, the valuation isn't "low", it's "justified", and from an investment perspective - useless. Justified by who's opinion? by the market's opinion, and that's all that matters. Now if you could demonstrate higher dividend yields for example, showing the valuations are indeed objectively low, then you might have a leg to stand on. No numbers were shown to support your claim. So, low valuations - not substantiated. Next. Then, instead of any supporting facts, we got a writeup showing an admiration to the US financial sector. Anyone with any idea at all about the nature of this business knows the function of most financial analysts isn't to discover any hidden value but to generate as much business as possible to whatever financial institution they're working in - namely - commissions and management fees of all stripes and colors. I hate it break it to you but the income of investment banks and most other financial institutions doesn't come from superior returns but from client fees, a decades long fact summarized by the famous question "where are the clients' yachts??" (google it). Indeed if you put your trust in Bank of America's or JPM's buy and sell recommendations you are better off buying the Nasdaq or whatever equally random action you wish to take. And if you are not aware mutual funds rarely ever beat the market after fees then I suggest you do go back and do some serious research. Now let's talk buy-side analysts, hedge funds, and others that are indeed in the business to find value. One could claim they are not active in the Thai market and leaves a lot on the table. Sounds nice, but as my first reply here showed you, in actual numbers, that foreign investors are a very significant part of the Thai market. And we are not talking Joe from Ohio or Jane from Mississippi. Those are foreign financial institutions, American, European, Asian and what not that move about 50% of the monthly market turnover. Yes, they are here. It may come a s surprise to you, but they are indeed very much aware the Thai market exist, and the point of looking for value in such emerging markets isn't lost on them. No, you are not the first to think of it, I am truly sorry to disappoint you. JPM, CS, UBS, and more have taken the pain to become actual registered members of SET due to their large activity, and many others are active without being members, using foreign and local staff to analyze local equities, with infrastructure and resources you do not posses. So, low competition - not substantiated. And even if you have a point here, you as a foreigner have an inherent disadvantage due to language barriers (the issue the OP seems to rightly struggles with) but more importantly since you'd be the last to know what goes on, after all the insiders have acted. With any apparent advantage due to lower competition you'd still need to fight a uphill battle with the disadvantages of a less transparent market that has poor coverage, almost of all of in Thai (if you still don't see how this is important, I suggest you go back to the beginning and read again). Bottom line - as I mentioned, we deal with facts and numbers here. Not fiction. You haven't shown any, and I doubt you can. I guess it's due to your limited time to engage ????

Can you demonstrate how low valuations are advantages? if the valuations are low due to the factors you mentioned why would that change in the future? Buy low P/E, sell low P/E. However, if dividend yields end up being higher then you got a point here. Is this the case? Regarding analyst coverage, the more eyes there are on a company (not only eyes, but mouths demanding answers from management as well), the better the transparency is. How is poor analyst coverage a positive thing for anyone other than insiders? To clarify, I don't necessarily disagree with you but it's interesting to see how to substantiate that. I guess what you mean is that the higher centralization of market players results in more inefficiencies?

I agree the market is interesting. Regarding no stock picking competition though, how do you determine that? From SET site it seems that about 50% of the activity this year came from foreign investors. https://www.set.or.th/en/market/statistics/investor-type

If it feels offensive, I'd either present a very perplexed "I don't understand" face or continuously ask, in the utmost polite manner, different versions of "but why". Using a very calm, innocent and respectable manner disarms them. With 6 guys in, the last thing the driver wants to do is to waste time. There's a limit though to the amount of time I'm willing to engage in that though so if I'm in a hurry and another songteo showed up then the driver'd get his 10 baht and I'd be on my way.

Yes, "wef" is how Thais would pronounce "wave". Thais don't switch "F"s to "P"s at the end of the word.

I guess some do and others don't.

Just use the word "wave" (short for microwave) as a verb. "Wave krup" or "Kho wave krup" (a bit more polite).

In the past there was such a feature, very convenient when repeating recent transactions, either with the same amount or a different one. Sometimes it was available and at other times it wasn't (looked kind of random, I never managed to figure out in which cases). Recently, this feature is absent altogether. Anyone else has the same issue? solution?

I believe acting as a director might also be deemed as work and require a WP, strictly speaking. As for only owning shares in a company, of course, no WP required.

Keep all the incorporation documents, company's "nangsue lablong", VAT registration and basically every document apart from ongoing day to day operations. Originals. Make your own backups. With some initial assistance, it is really not that hard to know what's what. I also recommend going over the monthly documents as well - withholding tax forms etc. Those forms may appear illegible but they are the same each month so you only need to learn the structure once.

I assume you mean gaining points for citizenship application. Will be interested to hear more. Did you post your experiences here? I noticed a long 2007 thread of another poster on this topic but I guess things might have changed since then.

To follow up on that, Krungsri's App now has an additional stage before approving larger payments. The App directs the user to a screen in which a selfie is taken and only then approves the payment.

Thai-French beef (some pieces sold on Makro, also from the farms) is good and not very expensive. Other than that, I buy imported beef, mainly Australian / NZ. BigC / Foodland / local importers. But yes, good beef in Thailand is expensive. Can you take standard Thai beef and make it tender? sure you can. As a stew for example. But not as a steak. Marinades won't do the trick. Tenderloin could be an exception though as it could be tender enough even in the normal Thai beef.

Don't. Best will be to smoke them in a smoker. Don't have one - use indirect heat on a grill. No grill? Cook in an oven. No oven? forget about ribs. Boiling ruins the texture.

Didn't try it yet, will need to do such a transfer soon enough, will post here.

Went to Krungsri in Central Festival today. The clerk checked my account and told me "you already take photo" (probably when opening the account a few years ago?). That's it.

I got the same krungsri notification on every login during the last month, did nothing, and today I got another page asking me to update my address in the app (no idea if that's related at all). After updating my address, I get no more notifications regarding the photo verification. Might pop in to a Krungsri branch if I'm near one to see if anything else is needed.

You probably have a point there. But, I am not getting married tomorrow. I am married for almost 16 years, with the last 8 living in Thailand, with back to back yearly extensions, trips abroad always with proper reentry permits, never a single day of overstay, ever, residence verified not only by documents but also by a house visit by the Jomtien guys a couple of years ago with a Thai witness, having two kids who live with us and attending school here, their birth certificates, passports, registration in Tabien baans submitted to immigration (although those last items aren't even a must). New family pics each year. The works. Am I surprised? should I be surprised? Maybe not. But I am somewhat disappointed. Yes. After striving to get everything perfect, year after year, to suddenly be treated as a suspect based on absolutely nothing? I guess I am still naive to expect more.

Click on the bottom-left rectangle that's labelled "Check visa result"

That's right. But one would imagine that if Immigration has the fingerprints on file they'd be able to ask corresponding data from the police on their own, or have any such data linked to their system... Otherwise how would they stop those with local criminal records at the border?

Exactly. Those with criminal background won't even bother doing visa extensions, they'd just overstay forever and if / when they are caught they'll find a way to crawl back in.

My guess? makes it easier to provide more work to the agents when it's further away.

Do you see it when you click on "chat"? Otherwise, in the chat window, click on "Menu" at the bottom.

"The results should be announced on the due date or after the due date"...

Last time I entered the country it was on a Re-entry permit, via Phuket, 2 years ago.