Thai stocks. What do you like

[gummigut]

Fly:

 

Bangkok real estate doesn't behave under "normal" rules because of how enforcement is handled. Basically, there is none

 

Seizing of assets of debtors is an onerous prospect here. Thus there is no reason to sell if your in financial difficulties (i.e.: the 97 crash). Hold onto your assets and make your lenders agree to some workout that you can live with and still keep control of your assets. Because there is no enforcement with regards to bad debtors, the pressure to liquidate isn't there. Thus prices don't come down as you might expect if this was a freer market economy.

 

I think buying real estate (condo) here isn't that bad an option if there is a good management team. But only if you are in it for the long haul. Undoubtedly there are probably better investments in the short term.

 

As for agricultural prices. The only thing I can surmise is that land prices in Thailand are severely protected by the fact that only citizens can own land. Now we have lots of rich Thais with money in the bank. The money isn't producing any returns really whatsoever, and there's a LOT of it sitting in the bank. What could you do with it? Not the SET, maybe bonds, but it's not that big a market over here. People would buy land, inflating the price. As the price, on a macro level with regards to the world is cheap, it would rise. Looking at it alone from within Thailand the rise may very well seem unjustifiable, but looking at the macro picture, it's just going to go up.

 

Course it could just be all the new farang boyfriends and husbands driving up the price by giving their girlfriends/wives money to buy land.

 

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