Badly hit by Tuesday's 14.84-per-cent fall in the stock market, equity funds, especially those which have an investment strategy linked to the SET Index, have suffered losses in value worth billions of baht, according to the mark-to-market value yesterday.

Following a comparison by The Nation on the Net Asset Values (NAV) on Monday and Tuesday, surveying 12 asset management firms and 80 equity funds including Long Term Equity Fund (LTF) and Retirement Mutual Fund (RMF), the NAV of 61 funds dropped more than the decline of the SET Index, facing an average book loss of around 18-20 per cent in a single day.

The country's biggest index-fund operator, TMB Asset Management, which manages seven index funds, faced an almost Bt1-billion loss in value.

The NAV of its SET50 fund declined to Bt27.07 on Tuesday, compared to the earlier Bt32.12. Its in-house index fund had a similar fate, dropping 19 per cent from Bt13.06 to Bt10.98.

Nasu Chansom, head of equity-fund management at Ayudhya Fund Management, accepted that his company's entire portfolio faced around Bt2 billion in book losses. All its equity funds experienced an 11-13 per cent drop against the 14.84 per cent dive of the SET Index.

According to Aberdeen Asset Management's deputy CEO Robert Samuel Penaloza, the firm's equity funds dropped between 6 and 11.8 per cent. Its small-capital fund survived Black Tuesday by facing only a 6-per-cent loss in value.

However, yesterday millions of baht flew into the industry due to the buying force of Long Term Equity Fund and Retire-ment Mutual Fund.

Kampol Jantavibool, TMB assistant to the director of the investment department, said the drastic change followed the movement of the SET Index. The company wasn't in a panic to sell, but on the other hand bought some stocks according to LTF and RMF purchasing orders.

The country's fourth largest mutual fund TMBAM, which usually receives around Bt20 million worth of LTF and Bt5 million to Bt10 million worth of RMF purchase orders per day during the last month of the year, yesterday obtained Bt66.4 million inflow to LTF and Bt54.1 million to RMF.

Kasikorn Asset Management, the country's largest mutual-fund operator, yesterday received Bt130 million for LTF and Bt150 million in RMF.

MFC Asset Management, the country's third-largest mutual-fund firm, yesterday received Bt6.9 million for LTF and Bt3.5 million for RMF. Its usual inflow for these two funds is less than Bt1 million per day.

Aberdeen Asset Management yesterday received Bt82 million for LTF and Bt17 million for RMF. According to Penaloza, the figure was double that for a regular day.

Meanwhile, Bond Electronic Exchange's chief executive Santi Kiranand said that the trading volume in November rose from the regular Bt17 billion to Bt18 billion, up to Bt30 billion.

However, he said that speculation could not be claimed as the main reason because during the past few months, the trend of interest rates had started to decline.

Piyarat Setthasiriphaiboon

 The Nation