Firstly, the Bangkok bombing, I didn’t want to immediately put a long post spewing obscenities towards the fact that a military government can’t even protect one of the most visited locations in Thailand, and that Thailand’s tourism will still eventually recover because people have short term memories and quickly forget, its a sad but true fact. Returning to Thailand from Singapore I saw empty highways on the way home, the next day, police and army persons everywhere, bags being checked at every entrance and far less traffic in the evenings, the city just feels worried. Now the key issue that I’ve had with the aftermath of this is that normally whenever such an event happens in Thailand, you would normally hear similar theories being floated around, however this is one of the first times where I haven’t heard 1 clear consensus theory over who may have been behind the attack, and that I find to be rather concerning. Perhaps the best possible explanation that I’ve heard is in regards to a power struggle that I can’t write about.

Secondly, currencies, perhaps all financial markets should be thrown into this paragraph of questions. We’ve seen 1) Commodities take a huge hit – but is oil at 40 a bad thing? Will this derail the world’s expansion into renewables? 2) Currencies in Asia/Emerging Markets all wobbling vs the USD 3) Junk bond spreads in the US are starting to widen, some are doubling 4) Equities haven’t really felt the brunt of anything just yet. So what? Malaysia, Indonesia currencies are back to the ’97 crisis levels, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines are slowly reaching those similar levels too, what does this all mean? Currency movements aren’t a short term game from what I’ve looked at historically, is the USD on its bull market trend for the coming years, and then again so what? Could Gold become an attractive destination yet again?

Finally, a fund? Launching a proper offshore fund, takes quite a few moving pieces to work in tandem, you face delays, increased costs, legal snafus, clients that change their mind but in the end with  1) A good partner that is incredibly detailed  – check; 2) A handful of clients or mountain of clients that will support you – check; 3) Financial markets that are volatile so that opportunities present itself – check; 4) The best service providers possible – check; 5) A lot of praying that everything works out on day 1 of investing – still praying. 6) Have a strong team – check and double check in the near future. But things can still go wrong, get delayed as we have experienced, but all perhaps for positive reasons. It’s going to be an interesting time starting out next month.

So I’m traveling again next week – this time to the Philippines to visit co’s, posts will be random yet again – apologies in advance.