Teera Chanpongsang, Portfolio Manager des FF Emerging Asia Fund und Allan Liu, Portfolio Manager des South East Asia Fund erklären die aktuelle Positionierungen in den Fonds hinsichtlich der aktuellen Lage:
Why did the market keep relatively stable despite the current situation?
1.Low foreign ownership of the market, which in turn is why the market hasn’t sold off as aggressively versus past coups (the market is currently down around 1.5%). YTD, while foreigners have been buying other ASEAN markets, they have been net sellers of Thai equities (around USD600m or THB20 mm) - this compares to outflows of USD6bln (THB194 mm) in 2013. In contrast, local investors have been net buyers of around THB17mm.
2.Teera is closely monitoring the situation but is also looking for opportunities to add to names that he believes arelong-term winners.
3.Better outcome in the short-term as the military is looking to find a solution to moving the country forward but we need to closely monitor the actions of the Red Shirts.
It’s also worth highlighting that:
•Teera holds an underweight country exposure in FF Emerging Asia Fund and has been underweight since October 2013 (he started to reduce his exposure last year given concerns of slowing consumption).
•Allan is also underweight Thailand in the UK-domiciled South East Asia Fund – Allan started reducing the fund’s allocation to Thailand in the first half of last year.
•From a P/E perspective, the market is slightly cheaper than the region but is still more expensive than North Asian multiples such as South Korea and China.
•The political uncertainty has weighed on economic growth over the past 4-5 months given there has been no functioning government. While new infrastructure projects are unlikely to be implemented, infrastructure build hasn’t been impacted (ie the subway project in Bangkok is still underway).
