MERILL LYCH HAS UPGRADED ITS RATING FOR SET, FROM UNDERWEIGHT TO OVERWEIGHT

Merrill Lynch has upgraded its rating for Thailand's stock market to "overweight", from the previous "underweight", resulting from the better economic trend of the country.

Mr. Spencer White, Merrill Lynch's Asia-region strategist, said Thailand's economic trend was improving, after the country was affected by negative news during the first half of the year. He said latest information, especially the current account balance, was satisfying. Meanwhile, the upward adjustment of the export and tourism sectors should help support the Thai economy to grow around 3.4% this year. As for the Thai stock index, Merrill Lynch has evaluated that it should be at around 880 points in the next 12 months, reasoning that it previously perceived increased potential in returns from investments in stocks. Mr. White noted that if listed companies are starting to adjust their debt structures, then the move would be significantly stimulating for re-rating the market, and that this should have happened a long time ago.

This latest rating improvement from Merrill Lynch is considered a positive sign, even though the country is about to face its first current account deficit since the Asian economic crisis. Meanwhile, economists are predicting the economic expansion to be at the lowest level in 4 years at 4%. The country's current account faced a deficit of 6.2 billion USD in the first half of this year, resulting from the rising energy prices. This could be compared with the 2.8 billion USD surplus gained during the first half of last year. The circumstance has created pressure on exchange rates and inflation, where the latter is at its highest level in seven years.

Source: thaisnews.com

MERILL LYCH HAS UPGRADED ITS RATING FOR SET, FROM UNDERWEIGHT TO OVERWEIGHT

Merrill Lynch has upgraded its rating for Thailand's stock market to "overweight", from the previous "underweight", resulting from the better economic trend of the country.

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Well, Merrill Lynch should wait a little before to assess the situation.

Oil fund was lifted end of july in Thailand.

Prices at the pump are up again this morning (23,40 THB for diesel)... Crude oil prices continue to increase...

If the trend continues we could have a big effect on consummer confidence (already low level in june)... and less spending. Therefore, less revenues for the listed companies.

Actually, we need to wait for the statistics of oil imports in august. I believe the july figures, which show a large decrease (-23 %) are a little bit biased. The explaination given by the governement were not very clear (big imports in may by traders, who paid the imports taxes in june).