Recommendations For Stock Brokers

[moe666]

I will be visiting Thailand for several months from November and would like the investors here to give me the names of some brokerage firms I can check out before opening an account.

[PoeDogg]

Interactive Brokers

[pjbradley]

After much research, I opened an account at Bualuang Securities, the brokerage arm of Bangkok Bank. They have "marketing officers" (the local term used for stock brokers) who are fluent in English. For more information, if you don't already know about or haven't checked out thaistocks.com, you should. It has a wealth of information about how to open an account, whether you plan to be a resident of Thailand or manage your account from overseas. The site is independent and membership-driven, just as this site is, and overseen by Paul Renaud, a Phuket-based Swiss gentleman with years of professional experience (Morgan Stanley, etc). As with this site, you can join for free to get access to the instructive articles on the ins and outs of getting and maintaining a brokerage account. (I'm a member of both sites, with no financial stake/interest in either one.) Its members are very prudent investors who like to make money from investments, as opposed to seeing the SET as a casino, which is the typical attitude of local traders throughout much of Asia (as well as many Wall Street "professionals").

From what I know, Interactive Brokers is based in Hong Kong. They advertise a lot in The Wall Street Journal Asia. I don't know why someone would recommend them for Thailand investments.

Hope this helps, Paul

[thaibutty]

Interactive Brokers

Interactive Brokers cannot be used for trdading the Thai stock market. I have been recommended Phatra Direct by some users on this forum before and have opened an account myself. The research tools and interface are good and the support from their office, when needed, e.g. technical issues...very professional.

Only drawback, can only be used with Internet Explorer.

As I am usually only using Firefox, this was a problem for me, as I could not access some of their features with my Internet Explorer setup. After deleting and reinstalling, I was ready to go.

So I am quite happy with Phatra Direct.

The one thing about trading in Thai stocks I don't like is that you cannot set stop losses or Limit Orders. Only market orders are possible...

[moe666]

Thanks guys this gives me a couple to check out.

Also thanks for the lead on Inteactive brokers, but I want my money in Thai Baht to gain from the slide of the dollar.

[humbug]

i use bualuang, but i have to say the research at phatra is the best, i chose bualuang as i mostly perform my own research and also i find it a little more personel but whenever i read phatra research papers whether on the economy or certain stocks they certainly have a better handle of the situation than most of the other brokers

[moe666]

i use bualuang, but i have to say the research at phatra is the best, i chose bualuang as i mostly perform my own research and also i find it a little more personel but whenever i read phatra research papers whether on the economy or certain stocks they certainly have a better handle of the situation than most of the other brokers

Thanks Humbug

[PoeDogg]

Thanks Thaibutty for bringing that to my attention; I just took it for granted that they did Thai stocks as well.

[moe666]

i use bualuang, but i have to say the research at phatra is the best, i chose bualuang as i mostly perform my own research and also i find it a little more personel but whenever i read phatra research papers whether on the economy or certain stocks they certainly have a better handle of the situation than most of the other brokers

Humbug what are the other pros and cons between bualuang and phatra other than the reserach.

[humbug]

i use bualuang, but i have to say the research at phatra is the best, i chose bualuang as i mostly perform my own research and also i find it a little more personel but whenever i read phatra research papers whether on the economy or certain stocks they certainly have a better handle of the situation than most of the other brokers

Humbug what are the other pros and cons between bualuang and phatra other than the reserach.

For me research is the main difference,

they would be small intricate differences, ie minimum requirement to start an account, maybe phatra has a two tier way of personel service, whereas bualuang has the same service if you put in 100k or 1 million etc

phatra has less offices if you are inclined sometimes to visit the one of the branches and sit in front of the large electronic boards and and use one of the terminals

money transfers, each broker has different ways of dealing, some online, some through email confirmations etc bualuang is through email confirmation , unsure of phatras stance

[Abrak]

i use bualuang, but i have to say the research at phatra is the best, i chose bualuang as i mostly perform my own research and also i find it a little more personel but whenever i read phatra research papers whether on the economy or certain stocks they certainly have a better handle of the situation than most of the other brokers

Humbug what are the other pros and cons between bualuang and phatra other than the reserach.

For me research is the main difference,

they would be small intricate differences, ie minimum requirement to start an account, maybe phatra has a two tier way of personel service, whereas bualuang has the same service if you put in 100k or 1 million etc

phatra has less offices if you are inclined sometimes to visit the one of the branches and sit in front of the large electronic boards and and use one of the terminals

money transfers, each broker has different ways of dealing, some online, some through email confirmations etc bualuang is through email confirmation , unsure of phatras stance

Actually Humbug, I quite like Bualuang research. The quality is totally shocking - I managed to find 12 mistakes on the front page of one report recently but they do look at interesting companies and wake you up to ideas sometimes. Phatra I find too generic and mainstream for me as, like you, I tend to do my own research. SCB Securities are pretty switched on in my opinion. They are the only company that I tend to research their strong recommendations based on their record.

I actually use Phillips but I am not sure I could truly recommend them.

I think local sales are a total waste of time in my opinion. They know absolutely nothing ask you why you are buying a stock that is illiquid and then ring you up two months after it has doubled and ask if it is safe to buy. As a general rule they are pretty good contra-indicators. As far as I can work out they are the only sales brokers who actually spend their time asking you for advice. Obviously I clearly havent had the best ones but I only really talk to 4 or 5 brokers from the major international investment brokers.

[humbug]

abrak

bualuang is shocking with their research, recently i had to argue with one of their research specialists to update the warrant table, as it was out of date, misleading and the ratios on a few warrants were incorrect, yes sometimes they have stocks which might susprise people, but so do country group securities and finansia, also thanacharts early bird has some great daily technicals which invariably are very on the mark and far east securties used to have some great daily papers in english and thai but now the english ones have been removed but boy oh boy were they good

but if i were to start all over again, i would pick phatra in a heart beat, as it gives a good sounding on research compared to the others yes a little stuffy but good research none the less, and then after a while naturally investors will always find their own feet and trade with their own research

thaistocks, i have a feeling they have similar research to bualuang, could be wrong, but it wouldnt surprise me on the mid cap stocks anyway, they could be connected some how, but i am not certain

from the international brokers, i always liked to read clsa research on thailand

but in the end the only way to decide is to go to each headoffice and talk to those involved and see what one feels before opening an account, i feel thats always the best way

[Abrak]

Humbug,

Like you I do my own research. Phatra research is very solid and quite good quality but doesnt tell me much. There economic research is pretty poor. CLSA's research is very good. I particularly like 'Bits and Pieces'.

But what I do in general is my own stuff and then swap ideas with the international brokers. It certainly gets stocks moving and they give you ideas too. I also use their research teams to visit companies that look interesting. There is always a shortage of ideas in the market. There are a couple of fund managers that are very switched on too.

I quite like shockingly bad research because even I can work out a PE even if they cant.

[humbug]

thats great, i agree if you have found reliable and great information sources, then thats a thousand times better than some of the daily reasearch papers

this year, i far removed from broker research, i am trading warrants, at the moment cgd-w2 and bland-w2, i was looking at cgd-w1 today but it looked a little top heavy on the bid-offer prices,like they wanted to take down the price a few notches before brining it back up, i was also looking at ukem's fall, not a bad stock and warrant, but i decided to keep on with cgd-w2, risky, specualtive but none the less this is what i feel most confident in trading at the moment for myself, but in all honestly i would actually rather sit on the sidelines this week like last week as some of the small-mid cap leader stocks are looking very tired, but as you mentioned on an older thread in another post, when the thai retail investors are in full force the set can really buck the worldwide trend and work on its own dynamics

one aspect of the set, is at 4.30pm the tally of the final price which can be seen say at 4,40pm, now if the bid offer are 10-11 baht, and no-one has even managed to finalise a trade at say 9 or 12 baht, but sometimes after the final tally at 4.40pm the stock might finish at 9 or even 12 baht a share even though through the whole days trading no-one has bought or sold the same stock at these prices, this is for me the most confusing aspect of the SET.

Edited August 16, 2010 by humbug

[Abrak]

To be honest Humbug I am a very boring value investor and dont really like bull markets. It is so rare to see local investors net buyers into a rising market like last month and has only really happened in force in 1993 and 2003. It has been a great year and noone can complain so I am basically happy to be on the sidelines too. If I miss out so be it.