Recommendations for investing smaller amounts in Thailand (for Thai people)

[jakow]

Can anyone recommend some relatively safe and stable funds Thai people can invest in? My wife would like to put her savings and salary (roughly 15k/mth) somewhere that can provide returns without the risk and volatility of things like cryptocurrency. The savings accounts we've looked at provide very low returns, so maybe an index fund through a Thai bank would be a good place to start? I'm not very knowledgeable with investing, so I'd appreciate any recommendations that we can check out. Thanks!

[Onerak]

Why not put the money in S&P500 index? There is no regulation from foreigners investing US stocks. You have to only a find a brokerage that will accept to open a brokerage account. 15K/month is substantial money to invest even for an American. 

[lkn]

4 hours ago, jakow said:

some relatively safe and stable funds Thai people can invest in?

Yes, but as you note, savings / fixed deposit accounts have relatively low returns.

 

I would be hesitant to do the S&P 500 as suggested above. 15,000 baht is less than $450, and consider the loss from exchanging to/from USD, the fee for buying into the index (and selling again), and presumably also the fee for wiring money to the brokerage account.

 

Additionally the investments will be in USD, so if the USD depreciates then so does the investment.

 

For a Thai, the better index would probably be SETI (i.e. Thai stocks), but honestly, with the corruption being what it is, and the frequency with which military coups happen, I wouldn’t want to “invest” in Thailand (which is what you effectively do, when buying into the SETI).

 

That said, I have not looked closer at the companies in the SET Index, but Thailand’s economy has actually been fairly good, so if you really want to invest, maybe take a closer look.

 

But also consider what the goal here is. I would imagine that with 15k/month in savings, the main priority is principal preservation rather than growth (with risk of loss).

[persimmon]

Bottom line with investing is - if you want safety , you have to accept lower returns . That usually means cash deposits or investment grade bonds . To have the chance of higher returns , you need to take more risk , which means stocks ( shares ) and holding for a minimum of 5-7 years . A global index fund ( c. 60 % US ) would give cheap coverage . The problem here is currency conversion and other fees might take a big chunk out of the returns .

[actonion]

When Thai's  invest they buy Gold, so my Mrs tells me 

[Neeranam]

Maybank is pretty good. 

 

I also made a good return with TMB SET 50.

 

I took all my money out of those in 2016 to buy crypto, which had MUCH larger returns.

 

I'm now putting 90% of my salary into BTC.

 

buying some Gold too.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Neeranam

[Nonthaburi Boy]

Lots of choice for funds through Thai banks and they are required to use a simple questionnaire to determine your risk appetite before you invest (so the bank will explain and she can make her own decision). If she is paying tax then Retirement Mutual Funds (which include a number of index-linked funds) and Super Savings Funds (which is basically what you are looking for and are often partially index-linked too) are the first thing you should look at as they are tax-deductible, which means she's effectively starting in profit. Those weighted towards a stock index tend to invest in the Thai stock market but there are funds which have risk spread much wider. You can get information about exactly what they invest in from the banks, often available online and in English. Investments have to be held for 5 years (RMF) or 10 years (SSF) though. 

 

Often the return on very low risk funds is miserly, if any, or has been for a number of years but if combined with tax benefits it might still be a really good option.

 

Doing more reading will be beneficial, even for the low-risk funds, and even if you only look at what they invest most funds in and google the outlook for that. 

 

Search for mutual funds OR save and invest and Bangkok Bank for a nice overview and there is a Thai version too. I'm recommending that because it's nice and clear - I haven't invested a baht with them and have no idea whether they have good fund managers or not. All banks have similar services.

 

 

I deleted something which might have been misleading.

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Nonthaburi Boy

[swissie]

14 hours ago, actonion said:

When Thai's  invest they buy Gold, so my Mrs tells me 

Yep! Because they know what Gold is. As opposed to other "financial instruments", that most Farangs don't even understand.

And: Over the years, I found out that Thais have some sort of Instinct as to WHEN to buy a little Gold. Very successful of picking mid-term bottoms. Much to my amazement. "My Thai's" have bought a little Gold 2 months ago.

[lkn]

7 hours ago, swissie said:

And: Over the years, I found out that Thais have some sort of Instinct as to WHEN to buy a little Gold. Very successful of picking mid-term bottoms

Problem with financially illiterate people is that they generally don’t keep proper records or calculate their APY, and just recall the times where they made a profit.