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Stock Market
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2004-05-26 13:19:42-04
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Volatile Thai Bourse keeps foreign investors out
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Oil prices now the main driving factor - buy time?
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"You should buy when blood is running in the street" says the old investment proverb. With the South in relative peace the last couple of weeks this time has now passed (hopefully for good, though there is no shortage of blood spilled elsewhere) - so now we are looking for oil running instead. Still today crude prices held strong, above $41 and that reflects the fact that an easy end to the shortage is not in sight. Heavy US buying for reserves and hedge funds investing keeps driving the price up (27% this year so far, setting a 21-year record of $41.72 Monday) and Saudi Arabia's promise of a production increase seem not to ease off the temprature. Long-term foreign investors keep their capital elsewhere as the SET is in ever-sharp competition with other investments, like overseas bonds, so much more as the ghost of government trouble still haunts. Privatization, the unrest in the south, and the recent debate in the parlament where the opposition now threaten a walk-out if not given half the time to their presentations. In my own personal opinion the Liverpool football-adventure does not help. Serious governments should not spend time or money on buying football-clubs and in Bangkok post today a team of law-professors even disputed the legality of such an issue, investing-for-profit outside the country. Please drop it, Mr. Shinawatra. Football-clubs are risky business. For the 6 billion Baht you could educate tens of thousands of children. That must be a better investment for any country. So it is big cap oil-stocks that drives the market and as each day brings its own news we see a strong fluctuation. A sudden return to anywhere near the heights of the good old days (6 months ago) seems very unlikely. However - Thai stocks remain cheap and to this writer like a good deal. I am buying for the long term. - - - Kim Eng Securities PLC had for some time a problem with their trading interface which has been called the best one around for Thai stocks. The problem was that it multiple times would refuse login. ThaiStockWatch.com notified Kim Eng about the problem and contributed with the troubleshooting. We were impressed by the dedication and speed with which the problem was addressed. It now appears to have been fully solved.
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