In an article from Bloomberg last week, it stated how the CIO of the SSO commented on his personal blog that the market was appearing cheap, and here are the two following quotes:

Tourism and commerce companies in particular offer a bargain, Win Phromphaet, the head of investment at Social Security Office, wrote in his blog. Thai companies can endure an economic slowdown as they have high cash reserves and low debt, while the government and the Bank of Thailand have room to increase stimulus, he said.

“Weak sentiment may offer an opportunity for investing in some Thai shares for long-term investors,” Win, who helps manage 1.2 trillion baht ($35 billion) in pension contributions at SSO, wrote in his blog. The SET index is “very attractive” near 1,400, he said.

Now I don’t quite care for these comments, what is more interesting from my perspective is how the the market participants have changed (or not changed) in the Thai market for the past decade, whilst I don’t have the stats on me from the past, retail investors have traditionally represented ~50-60% of total trading, local institutions at ~10-15% (ex prop desks). Daily trading has increased from ~thb 15bn to ~thb 35 bn per day over the decade. Why is it the case that local institutions aren’t a larger portion of the market given the rise of asset management firms?