Finnomena touts US, India and Vietnam for investment

The US, India and Vietnam are the three main markets worth investing in to reduce the impact of the expected import tariff policy under president-elect Donald Trump, says digital wealth management platform Finnomena.
Jessada Sookdhis, chief executive and founder of Finnomena, said investment opportunities under Trump 2.0 should be beneficial for US medium-sized and small businesses in the banking, energy and industrial sectors because of corporate tax reductions and higher tariffs for imports from China and other countries.
Stock prices in these three sectors have remained steady, unlike other segments that have posted record highs, leading Finnomena to recommend these assets to investors.
Wasin Parithan, managing director of Definit Investment Advisory Securities, a Finnomena subsidiary, said India and Vietnam should be the major beneficiaries of manufacturing relocations out of China.
Vietnam is supported by an upgrade from a frontier market to an emerging market, noted the brokerage.
Arm Tungnirun, director of the China Studies Center at Chulalongkorn University, said he was surprised by the US election results, in which Trump won by a landslide and both chambers of the legislature are leaning Republican.
“This happened because the public was not satisfied with the US economic performance,” he told a recent investment forum hosted by Finnomena.
Trump’s policies during his second term will be very different from the first because he now has experience, said Mr Arm.
Trump has three important policies, with the most important tactic being trade tariffs, he said. Trump announced the new government would increase tariffs on Chinese goods by four times and global goods by 10%.
“We also have to keep an eye on who will be on the economic team, including the Treasury Secretary and Trade Representative,” said Mr Arm.
“If it is the same group who oversaw trade policy with China in Trump’s first term, the policies will likely be more severe this time because in the past they received more money from import tariffs, causing Chinese-made goods to relocate production bases to Vietnam, India and Mexico. This time, the goal is to have factories move back to the US.”
In the short term, China will be hit hard by the trade war, he said. Economists predict tariffs will affect China’s GDP by 2%, while other countries could also be affected by a tariff hike.
“Thailand has to prepare for this. But in the long term, if this policy is not successful, the US economy will face problems. The policy is self-destructive. In general, Trump makes everything uncertain,” said Mr Arm.
Regarding the US policy to block technology from China, he said a compromise is likely for the ban on TikTok in the US and Chinese electric vehicle makers setting up factories across the ocean.
“This differs from the Biden administration, which refused to discuss this issue with China,” said Mr Arm.
In terms of geopolitics, he said he believes global conflict will be reduced because Trump was the only US president who did not start a new war. As a consequence, tensions in the Middle East, the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait are likely to ease.
Thailand should benefit from the easing of global geopolitical issues and the relocation of some production bases from China to Thailand to escape the trade war, said Mr Arm.
“However, we have to deal with Chinese products that are increasingly entering the domestic market,” he said.