Sornchai Suneta – A Diversified Portfolio Protects You from Currency Devaluation

Having over 20 years of experience in asset management and wealth management industry, Sornchai Suneta is currently leading the Investment Advisory Practice, CIO office at Siam Commercial Bank (SCB). Also, he was appointed as Advisor to the sub-committee on Monetary, Banking, Financial Institutions and Capital market, Thailand legislative Assembly, in addition to serving as one of the CFA Society Thailand’s Board of Directors and also CFP Board member.  Before joining the Bank’s Investment Advisory team, he was the Chief Investment Officer at SCB Asset Management; he managed assets over THB 1 trillion approximately USD 35 billion. He holds a Bachelor degree in Finance from ABAC University and Master of Science in Finance from the University of London.  In this episode, Sornchai shares his worst investment story which was investing in the currency market during the Asian financial crisis of 1997. He shares his insights about his investment experience in the developing markets that have volatile and illiquid markets, across the debt, equity and currency spectrum.     “The first thing for a trader, investor, or the fund manager to think about is that you have to survive first before thinking about getting more profit.” – Sornchai Suneta What do you want to hear from the My Worst Investment Ever Podcast? Tell us here! Resources:  My Worst Investment Ever Book myworstinvestmentever.com Topics Covered: 04:47 – The circumstance that leads to Sornchai’s worst investment ever during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 06:18 – Interest rate moving up to 15% making SOrnchai lend his position to the traders and expecting to cash-out his profits after a week but it never happened, interest rate went up to 100% because the financial crisis came and happened 07:34 – Lesson Sornchai learned from his investment experience 08:11 – Andrew’s takeaways from Sornchai’s story 11:32 – Sornchai’s advice to people who wants to trade currency: You should have enough liquidity to that currency. 13:57 – Sornchai’s actionable advice quoted by Andrew: “Whether its stocks, bonds, other assets, or currencies you still need to build a diversified portfolio so that you don't end up overexposing yourself to any one currency.” Main Takeaways: Lesson 1: If you are playing around with emerging market position you have to be very careful that everything can happen at any time. When you buy an investment, you have to be diversified.” – Sornchai Suneta Lesson 2: “The benefit of having experience in the market is that you know what the worst case could be.” – Andrew Stotz Lesson 3: “When you think about investing in currencies it's probably better to say I'm going to ride the slow appreciation of a currency rather than the fast way to get in. And as we say in sometimes you're catching a falling knife.” – Andrew Stotz   You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth...