Background

The Kingdom of Thailand was established in the mid-14th century. Known as Siam until as recently as 1939, Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country never to have been taken over by a European power.The country remains firmly independent of external influences. A bloodless revolution in 1932 led to the formation of the current constitutional monarchy.

The bipolar nature of the US equity markets was on display on Thursday. The day started off with US stock futures shaking off the post FOMC sell-off, just as President Obama started his press conference at 8:00PM Eastern Time. The Japanese stock markets made a big move up when the reopened after a holiday, after Japan’s Factory Output rose at twice predicted pace. The European markets too picked up the bullish bias from Japan, ignoring the highest unemployment rate since 2005. At 8:30AM on Thursday, prior to the release of economic data, S&P Futures were trading at 880, having reached a high of 887 earlier in the night.

Though the economic data was mixed, the equity market continued in the bullish mode, staying well above the important technical level of 875, with the small cap Russell 2000 crossing the 500 barrier. With the large gap-up above the resistance level, the market showed an amazing ability to shake of mixed news, including a drop in personal income and spending and the 13^th week of record continuing job loss claims.

The Thai economy and the Thai Fund (TF) and iShares Thailand ETF (THD) have all been buffeted by political turmoil and outright chaos. In only four months there have been three prime ministers. In comparison, Japan's politics looks like a calm ocean of stability.

Mr Abhisit, a youthful forty-four years of age and educated at Eton and Oxford, won a parliamentary vote called after Somchai Wongsawat was removed from office ten days ago by the Constitutional Court. The Supreme Court now appears to have a veto on duly elected representatives.

The new UK-born economist leader has promised a rapid disbursement of government funds to try to revive the faltering economy. But with tourism, foreign direct investment and exports all in retreat due to the global economic slowdown and domestic political turmoil, his administration will have its hands full.