Stocks And Shares. - Living Well In Thailand From Stocks And Shares

[Estrada]

I have been investing in Thai Stocks and Shares since 1997. I invested B6 Million on 10th April 2009 and had increased the value to B16 Million by 9th April 2010. I built a house up country for 2,200,000 from the profit, and decided to retire in June 2010 and look after my personally managed "Pension Portfolio" using online trading. I invest in non risky shares with high dividends and upsides of 20 to 40% mainly Telecom related. I have 3 children at University so I have to draw B200,000 a month to live on and for overseas travel. I can easily make an average of B400,000/month although in the past 4 weeks I made B3Million.

Meanwhile I received letters from my British Pension providers telling me that my pension fund values had decreased (the so called professionally managed with profits funds have remained at the same amount for 10 years!) with a lame excuse that they could not make any profit on my pension funds due to the Global Equity Market. How these so called professionals could not make a 300% profit on my funds in 2009 to 2010 is beyond belief. Then there is the British State pension which I shall receive this year which has also been mismanaged by the Government who refuse to give annual increases to my pension as I live in Thailand.

So yes you can live off investments in the Thai SET, but you need to know that global equity markets tend to crash every 11 years. i.e. 1997, 2008 so the next crash will be around 2019. Meanwhile equity markets are going to go up for some years as the world economies recover.

[notime]

How about "living well in Thailand from gambling?". Day trading is not work. It is speculation. Your gain is someone else's loss. Bad karma. You live well from helping other people not from praying on them.

[gerry53]

How about "living well in Thailand from gambling?". Day trading is not work. It is speculation. Your gain is someone else's loss. Bad karma. You live well from helping other people not from praying on them.

I am not a day trader but I don't agree with your statement. If you play the game you take your chances willingly - nothing personal and you don't have to pry the money out of his hands. It's civilized and done through brokerages. That's almost like saying if you took someones job because they got fired you would get bad karma???

There are winners and losers in real estate transactions, employment, divorces, relationships - that's life.

Edited March 18, 2013 by gerry53

[how241]

I opened an account with Kasikorn Securities in late January. I have a very good representative who has made excellent recommendations and each morning I receive a fairly detailed analysis briefing from their research department. So far up over 20% on dividend paying stocks. For me it was a no brainer; this is a vibrant expanding economy that makes sense to participate in.

For those waiting for the SET to pull back 10-15%, my gut reaction is that you will miss the boat.

We buy individual companies, not the market, and every day there is a new opportunity.

I also have Kasikorn and they give a good morning reports and daily reports with lots of info. So far, so good.

[how241]

If ExpatJ only made 10% in Thai stocks and the SET did 36% for 2012 then he shouldn't be picking stocks or day trading. Recieving 40+% in a headache free Thai mutual fund would seem a much better solution instead.

Can you mention the name of this fund that has been doing well for you ? Thanks

[how241]

Do anyone know the answer to this ? Does a farang, living in Thailand, and trading stocks through Kasikorn supposed to put a check in the NVDR box next to the stock name he is trying to trade on the order screen? I was told that if you do NOT check NVDR, then you will Not receive any dividends. True/False? Another question, if you receive stock dividends, do you have to file and pay taxes on them? Thanks for any info. " An NVDR, is non-voting depository receipt."

[wordchild]

It is always safer/easier to hold your shares in NVDR, as an alternative you can also buy or convert to foreign registered stock but that depends on availability. Thai companies take this very seriously (its the law) and they will withhold dividend payments where they have reason to believe that the owner (of a Thai registered stock) is foreign. NVDR is just easier and there is no real practical difference (unless you want to launch a bid for the whole company) .Indevidual circumstances vary and I am not sure what the situation is if you have permanent residence but , just living here with, say a work permit, still counts you as foreign. Even if you are Thai you can hold your shares in NVDR so no need to make things complicated, tick the box.

you are not required to declare dividends from SET listed companies, but, again depending on indevidual circumstances, there maybe benefit in having the (withholding) tax that you have already paid included in your total tax calculation.

Edited March 19, 2013 by wordchild

[gerry53]

If ExpatJ only made 10% in Thai stocks and the SET did 36% for 2012 then he shouldn't be picking stocks or day trading. Recieving 40+% in a headache free Thai mutual fund would seem a much better solution instead.

Can you mention the name of this fund that has been doing well for you ? Thanks

Certainly how241. It is Kasikorns K-Star mutual fund and the redemptions (similar to dividends) are given when the fund reaches set valuations. These redemptions are not subject to Thai taxes or witholding fees either.

Try searching kasikorn asset management then english and past performance for comparison data of their funds.

Edited March 19, 2013 by gerry53

[Pinot]

I have about $200k in American high yield mutual funds, Senior Loans funds and business development company funds. I prefer mutual funds over ETFs because they're more stable. The portfolio produces about $1000 a month in dividends (6%) and the funds all are increasing in price. I've been making 12-14% a year doing this. Funds such as EAFAX, JAHYX, SAMBX and TIYRX. This is a pretty stable income producing portfolio. With the stock market down 60 points today, I was down $20. March has seen daily increases of $150-200 on the average with the recent run up.

This is a pretty easy way to make dividend income and grow your nest egg with controlled risk (whatever that is). Don't do anything in the market unless you completely understand it.

[belg]

wow that are great return ... so share it with us, or you think that will kill your olden goose eggs, which i doubt, so i doubt any of this bragging is real in the first place, or share to prove it to all

loooooooooool

[gerry53]

wow that are great return ... so share it with us, or you think that will kill your olden goose eggs, which i doubt, so i doubt any of this bragging is real in the first place, or share to prove it to all

loooooooooool

It almost sounds like sour grapes? If Pinot got good returns in this bull market thats great. I think he is correct that QUALITY dividend and income producing funds often produce better results than ETFs. (do your own research)

Since 2008 many have hung onto low yielding investments giving returns lower than the inflation rate and then paying taxes on those dismal profits. They may be guaranteed but only to lose money in real terms - in my opinion they are making others rich.

[PCA]

wow that are great return ... so share it with us, or you think that will kill your olden goose eggs, which i doubt, so i doubt any of this bragging is real in the first place, or share to prove it to all

loooooooooool

if you refer to the post of Pinot then this sounds real and probably is. You might have read the dividend performance of 6% as a monthly return but after doing the math with 1000$ it should be obvious that this is meant as yearly.

[Arkady]

I have been following and investing in the SET for 26 years. Seen a lot of ups and downs including Black Monday in 1987 and the collapse of the baht in 1997 and the 125% or so bull market in 1989. My current portfolio is up over 100% over the last 3 years and I have received a dividend yield of around 5% net of withholding tax on the original investment. I probably could have made more capital gains through more active trading but I am quite satisfied with the returns based on limited time required monitoring the portfolio. I like looking at fundamentals but get bored quickly when I have to spend a lot of time looking at a screen trading stock. I am a value investor and go for stocks that pay a consistently good dividend with a track record of still being able to pay in bad years.

I have never been interested in day trading but there are some big hand Thai speculators who day trade in a very methodical way with several hundred million baht a piece. Some have done very well but most have tales of being wiped out at some point and having to struggle back again. You need to be very disciplined. These guys usually trade from an office set up and get to work very early in the morning to absorb the news and overseas market action. They tend to have many connections and sources of rumours and genuine insider information as well as share information with other traders. Trading on the insider information and operating concert parties to manipulate stock prices is illegal but these guys have connections and money are confident of being able to pay off police, prosecutors and judges if the SEC ever tries to go after them. The SEC is rather toothless, as it has no powers of prosecution and has to rely on corrupt police and prosecutors. Thus it concentrates mainly on small fry and its monthly reports of disciplinary action mainly comprise brokers caught taking orders on their mobile phones or placing orders without permission from clients who tacitly allowed them to trade discretionary accounts and later renege and report them to the SEC when they lose money. The other big players in day trading in Thailand are the brokers' own proprietary traders who are basically doing the same thing as the big hand private investors with their firm's capital, usually competing against the firm's clients.

The main disadvantages of day trading in Thailand are:

1) You will never have anything like the information flow of the Thai big hand investors and the brokers' prop traders.

2) You cannot easily short Thai stocks.

3) You cannot easily obtain a margin account as a foreigner. There are only a handful of these in the market and many brokers have none.

Not being able to short Thai stocks easily means that you will probably only consistently make money from day trading in a bull trend and should be out of the market twiddling your thumbs in a bear trend.

By all means go and ahead and day trade here. We have a bull market at the moment, even if it may be getting a touch stale now. However, bear in mind that the most successful day traders have recovered from being virtually wiped out at some stage and only learned proper discipline from those experiences. Most of those who got wiped out were crippled mentally and financially and never came back to the market. Ideally you should day trade with initial capital you can afford to lose completely as a learning process and still be able to recover. If you haven't got this but hope to actually make a steady living from speculative trading in a long only market, think again.

Edited March 19, 2013 by Arkady

[Arkady]

It is always safer/easier to hold your shares in NVDR, as an alternative you can also buy or convert to foreign registered stock but that depends on availability. Thai companies take this very seriously (its the law) and they will withhold dividend payments where they have reason to believe that the owner (of a Thai registered stock) is foreign. NVDR is just easier and there is no real practical difference (unless you want to launch a bid for the whole company) .Indevidual circumstances vary and I am not sure what the situation is if you have permanent residence but , just living here with, say a work permit, still counts you as foreign. Even if you are Thai you can hold your shares in NVDR so no need to make things complicated, tick the box.

you are not required to declare dividends from SET listed companies, but, again depending on indevidual circumstances, there maybe benefit in having the (withholding) tax that you have already paid included in your total tax calculation.

This cuts both ways because Thai holders of foreign registered stock can also not get their dividends. It is the registry that withholds payments, not the companies themselves, unless they act as their own registrars which has I think been completely phased out now.

I agree that NVDRs make sense for foreign retail investors. Many foreign funds also use them for convenience. Only pension funds tend to have strict fiduciary rules requiring to always vote their proxies. If you buy foreign registered stock or buy local and have it registered as foreign, in many cases the foreign stock is not traded every day which means that the value of your stock in your online port with the broker will be shown as the last done foreign price which may have been a few years ago. It might even have never traded on the foreign board which means the value will be shown as zero.

On the con side, you cannot claim any tax rebate if you own NVDRs. If you are resident in Thailand for more than 180 days a year and own foreign registered stocks, you can claim a rebate of some of the 10% withholding tax paid on your dividends based on a complex formula that inputs the company's tax rate and your personal tax rate. The higher the company's tax rate and the lower your tax rate is, the more rebate you can claim. Now that corporate tax rates have gone down from 30% to 20%, this benefit is less valuable and there is a bit of paperwork involved but those with big dividend flows who reside in Thailand might want to consider it.

[how241]

If ExpatJ only made 10% in Thai stocks and the SET did 36% for 2012 then he shouldn't be picking stocks or day trading. Recieving 40+% in a headache free Thai mutual fund would seem a much better solution instead.

Can you mention the name of this fund that has been doing well for you ? Thanks

Certainly how241. It is Kasikorns K-Star mutual fund and the redemptions (similar to dividends) are given when the fund reaches set valuations. These redemptions are not subject to Thai taxes or witholding fees either.

Try searching kasikorn asset management then english and past performance for comparison data of their funds.

Thanks for sharing that info. I will certainly check them out.

[ExpatJ]

I have been following and investing in the SET for 26 years. Seen a lot of ups and downs including Black Monday in 1987 and the collapse of the baht in 1997 and the 125% or so bull market in 1989.

The main disadvantages of day trading in Thailand are:

1) You will never have anything like the information flow of the Thai big hand investors and the brokers' prop traders.

2) You cannot easily short Thai stocks.

3) You cannot easily obtain a margin account as a foreigner. There are only a handful of these in the market and many brokers have none.

Not being able to short Thai stocks easily means that you will probably only consistently make money from day trading in a bull trend and should be out of the market twiddling your thumbs in a bear trend.

By all means go and ahead and day trade here. We have a bull market at the moment, even if it may be getting a touch stale now. However, bear in mind that the most successful day traders have recovered from being virtually wiped out at some stage and only learned proper discipline from those experiences. Most of those who got wiped out were crippled mentally and financially and never came back to the market. Ideally you should day trade with initial capital you can afford to lose completely as a learning process and still be able to recover. If you haven't got this but hope to actually make a steady living from speculative trading in a long only market, think again.

Good arguments against day trading. Swing trading, using technical analysis , over days/weeks is much more viable. First come up with a list of blue chip growth stocks* then use technical analysis to determine when to buy/sell with the trade period varying from one day to weeks. This works best in bearish, volatile or stagnant markets - in bull markets such as now, buy and hold is best.

* only investing in these blue chip growth stocks is your insurance if your tech. analysis is wrong and the stock drops in price- you may have to hold on for months but these blue chips will almost inevitably go up in general over time.

[notime]

How about "living well in Thailand from gambling?". Day trading is not work. It is speculation. Your gain is someone else's loss. Bad karma. You live well from helping other people not from praying on them.

I am not a day trader but I don't agree with your statement. If you play the game you take your chances willingly - nothing personal and you don't have to pry the money out of his hands. It's civilized and done through brokerages. That's almost like saying if you took someones job because they got fired you would get bad karma???

There are winners and losers in real estate transactions, employment, divorces, relationships - that's life.

You are entitled to have a different opinion gerry 53 and I'm glad that you are not a day trader. I'm sure lot's of other people on this thread wouldn't agree with me either. They are all entangled in a very "civilized" but unsustainable culture of gambling and cherishing money as King. Most of bankers are in it. Most politicians are. That is this culture that brought the world to the place it is in now and nothing indicates that it's going to get any better as the populations and expectations are ever rising and the natural resources are drying up.

I don't see any relevance in your comparison with replacing somebody who lost a job. Day-trading is the same as gambling and hence not work. It doesn't create anything useful. I know that people gamble willingly but they only do so out of greed. And greed is NOT good. It's very primitive and egotistic. It's like a disease and it's pushing human civilization towards extinction. Life doesn't have to be like a game of "winners and losers" and I am sure it is not for many who may agree with me.

Edited March 19, 2013 by notime

[Pinot]

wow that are great return ... so share it with us, or you think that will kill your olden goose eggs, which i doubt, so i doubt any of this bragging is real in the first place, or share to prove it to all

loooooooooool

if you refer to the post of Pinot then this sounds real and probably is. You might have read the dividend performance of 6% as a monthly return but after doing the math with 1000$ it should be obvious that this is meant as yearly.

High yield (for example junk bonds ETFs or mutual funds) return about 6%. Dividends are paid monthly. On $200k that's about $1000/mo. These mutual funds have also risen in value about 12% when you include the dividends.

Be careful here if you're new to investing. Risk increases as yield increases. There are REITs kicking off 15% yearly yields but I like to sleep at night. High yield junk bonds can be risky...very risky.

A friend has his money in an Australian bank earning 5%. That's where I'd be if I was Australian. As an American I can't get that return. I've learned to live with the risk of gambling in junk bonds. I have my eye on the Set and the interest rates in Thai banks. Expats can easily buy mutual funds in Thailand through Thai banks. Close to 3% in regular Thai savings accounts! That's pretty attractive if you don't know what you're doing when it comes to investments. Then again, Thai banks have gone under in the past. Be careful out there.

[how241]

wow that are great return ... so share it with us, or you think that will kill your olden goose eggs, which i doubt, so i doubt any of this bragging is real in the first place, or share to prove it to all

loooooooooool

if you refer to the post of Pinot then this sounds real and probably is. You might have read the dividend performance of 6% as a monthly return but after doing the math with 1000$ it should be obvious that this is meant as yearly.

High yield (for example junk bonds ETFs or mutual funds) return about 6%. Dividends are paid monthly. On $200k that's about $1000/mo. These mutual funds have also risen in value about 12% when you include the dividends.

Be careful here if you're new to investing. Risk increases as yield increases. There are REITs kicking off 15% yearly yields but I like to sleep at night. High yield junk bonds can be risky...very risky.

A friend has his money in an Australian bank earning 5%. That's where I'd be if I was Australian. As an American I can't get that return. I've learned to live with the risk of gambling in junk bonds. I have my eye on the Set and the interest rates in Thai banks. Expats can easily buy mutual funds in Thailand through Thai banks. Close to 3% in regular Thai savings accounts! That's pretty attractive if you don't know what you're doing when it comes to investments. Then again, Thai banks have gone under in the past. Be careful out there.

5% in a gov't. insured bank sound OK, at least for part of your money.

[Naam]

How about "living well in Thailand from gambling?". Day trading is not work. It is speculation. Your gain is someone else's loss. Bad karma. You live well from helping other people not from praying on them.

although i abhor daytrading (except in rare cases) your opinion "preying on other people" is as ignorant as can be. no offence meant!

[HerbalEd]

Since August 2011, I have been making, on average, 110,000 baht per month profit investing in Thai stocks- but i don't take this out as cash, i always put it back into my thai stocks portfolio.

Remember, stock profits are like Las Vegas chips ... You're not ahead until you actually cash in your stocks/chips.

[HerbalEd]

How about "living well in Thailand from gambling?". Day trading is not work. It is speculation. Your gain is someone else's loss. Bad karma. You live well from helping other people not from praying on them.

Yeah, it is a gamble ... but the ones who loose are playing the game of their own free will and know the rules of the game. So I don't see where the ones that win are "preying" (not "praying") on anyone.

Edited March 20, 2013 by HerbalEd

[Naam]

If anyone would be happy with 10%-20% per month, (3 years historic records), minimum $50,000, no 'lock-in',in a highly reputable Forex, p. m. me or write me at : [email protected]

LOL

hope nobody is happy with 10 - 20% per month

post your historic records here so that I can cut them in pieces right away.

[Naam]

Since August 2011, I have been making, on average, 110,000 baht per month profit investing in Thai stocks- but i don't take this out as cash, i always put it back into my thai stocks portfolio.

As long as you do realize, and understand, that money that you do not spend, and money that you do not have, are the same.

an interesting theory

[lannarebirth]

If anyone would be happy with 10%-20% per month, (3 years historic records), minimum $50,000, no 'lock-in',in a highly reputable Forex, p. m. me or write me at : [email protected]

LOL

hope nobody is happy with 10 - 20% per month

post your historic records here so that I can cut them in pieces right away.

One can make that much with a portion of their portfolio, but only if they understand that that portion might be lost entirely. I've done it on several occasions (on an annual basis) but it was never more than 15%-20% of my portfolio. I lost it all a couple of years too.. Never once did I think I'd take those risks on someone else's behalf.

[gerry53]

How about "living well in Thailand from gambling?". Day trading is not work. It is speculation. Your gain is someone else's loss. Bad karma. You live well from helping other people not from praying on them.

I am not a day trader but I don't agree with your statement. If you play the game you take your chances willingly - nothing personal and you don't have to pry the money out of his hands. It's civilized and done through brokerages. That's almost like saying if you took someones job because they got fired you would get bad karma???

There are winners and losers in real estate transactions, employment, divorces, relationships - that's life.

You are entitled to have a different opinion gerry 53 and I'm glad that you are not a day trader. I'm sure lot's of other people on this thread wouldn't agree with me either. They are all entangled in a very "civilized" but unsustainable culture of gambling and cherishing money as King. Most of bankers are in it. Most politicians are. That is this culture that brought the world to the place it is in now and nothing indicates that it's going to get any better as the populations and expectations are ever rising and the natural resources are drying up.

I don't see any relevance in your comparison with replacing somebody who lost a job. Day-trading is the same as gambling and hence not work. It doesn't create anything useful. I know that people gamble willingly but they only do so out of greed. And greed is NOT good. It's very primitive and egotistic. It's like a disease and it's pushing human civilization towards extinction. Life doesn't have to be like a game of "winners and losers" and I am sure it is not for many who may agree with me.

Hi Notime - Yes we do disagree but that's OK. I may not be a day trader but I have shorted stocks in the past where I am betting the price will go down. There is definitely a loser on the other side of the equation - the guy who invested hoping the stock increased in value. Nobody twisted anyones arm to invest or as you say gamble. I have been on both sides and again - that's life and reality. An true investor is not a gambler - I never gamble, I can't afford to and the money was difficult to acquire thru hard work! It also goes against my principles.

It was commerce (greed in your philosophy) that developed this planet from caveman times, trading routes of long ago and is still going on today. It is called progress. I agree it was not all civilized or sustainable and we need to work on that. Controlled growth, populations etc are all great ventures but realistically it will probably perform like nature always has, after it gets too big mortality increases thru disease or war. Extincton will come eventually, most likely from events we can not control like disease, meteor, solar flares etc - who knows but I am here for the duration!.

I must be primitive and egotistical (I forgot greedy) because I do plan to continue to invest and earn money. And yes - I strive to become a winner not a loser. In spite of my calignous nature I do pay my fair share of taxes to help others and spread my money around making other peoples lives better.

Good luck

Edited March 20, 2013 by gerry53

[MrWorldwide]

http://www.infochoice.com.au/banking/savings-account/rams/rams-saver/24819

I like the idea that I can spend my days and nights doing something other than scouring rows of data on a laptop, but that's just me. For some, I suspect that the prospect of Forex or share trading is as much about finding something to fill in their days when they retire - fortunately, I've discovered fast women and slow horses.

[how241]

http://www.infochoice.com.au/banking/savings-account/rams/rams-saver/24819

I like the idea that I can spend my days and nights doing something other than scouring rows of data on a laptop, but that's just me. For some, I suspect that the prospect of Forex or share trading is as much about finding something to fill in their days when they retire - fortunately, I've discovered fast women and slow horses.

Thanks for that link. Are those Gov't. insured accounts ? Is it the same as the USA, where the FDIC will always pay back your money if there is a problem?

[BlackJack]

if you want to do some DD then look up Morning star Thailand

click on funds

pull the YTD % returns and get a suprise - top one up 31 %

good luck

[USNret]

http://www.infochoice.com.au/banking/savings-account/rams/rams-saver/24819

I like the idea that I can spend my days and nights doing something other than scouring rows of data on a laptop, but that's just me. For some, I suspect that the prospect of Forex or share trading is as much about finding something to fill in their days when they retire - fortunately, I've discovered fast women and slow horses.

I currently spend about 2-4 hours per week reviewing my positions. This isn't day trading; it's establishing strategic positions then watching your thesis play out. Most of my positions mature in 4-24 months, and don't take much maintenance in between. It is a rewarding diversion, with the added benefit of generous returns with minimal effort.