Note: Data as of 09/08

Have the number of “cases” officially peaked in Thailand over the weekend? Are they reporting that more people are being released from hospitals/hospitels? Is it time for the reopening trade to finally take off? I’ve been wrong on the timing on it this time (took longer than I thought), though internally we have been modeling this versus India’s experience with the Delta (I like to call it the Chindian version, my Malaysian friends will appreciate this) which was a ~3 month cycle.

Commodities (oil) have been smacked recently, doesn’t take away from my thinking that next year we’ll see ~100 barrel. In Thailand coal names had done well (AGE, LANNA, BANPU), but BANPU’s management decided to double their equity and ruin a great share price performance….was of the viewpoint that it would’ve comfortably been 20+ without this corporate action as they had the great tailwinds of coal + natty gas. Positive aspect for us is that we just switch to coal names in different countries…

Politics … car mobs aren’t going to have an impact…interestingly in Vietnam, despite lockdowns being far worse than Thailand and the vaccine rollout being far slower, people on the ground still trust in their government and a family member it best “Their government wants their country to be #1 whereas here they are just selfish and want to keep the money for themselves.”