Earnings season has started with fincos’ being the first sector to release results. As of writing – TISCO, AEONTS and KTC have reported #’s that are -20% YoY or more, KBANK just announced mid-day today and its -70% YoY

But we know this. We know that ~10-20% of GDP comes from tourism and with that Thailand’s economy is going to be $hit this year. The knock on effects are rather straightforward, no tourist receipts => retail/restaurants closing => rental rates at shopping centers/etc falling => value of REITs declining => NPLs at banks increasing => higher unemployment throughout the country => social unrest (just starting).

And to those whom think that the market doesn’t make sense given the weak economy, I say yes that’s correct, but if you run a regression between the annual market and the annual economic performance you’ll see an incredibly low correlation. The market in the ST-MT does not equal the economy…