The "Stock Exchange Roadshow in Chiang Mai Province" event has concluded, receiving an overwhelming response from Northern investors who came to update on trends and seek profit opportunities amid market challenges.
A key highlight attracting much attention was the panel discussion titled "Generating Outstanding Returns for Investment Portfolios with Top Thai and Foreign Stocks," addressing investors' major challenge of building portfolios that grow and diversify risk effectively.
To share important insights for those who missed the event, Thairath Money has compiled a list of "Top Stock Picks" from three leading industry experts who analyzed and carefully selected strong fundamental Thai stocks worth accumulating and global foreign stocks with outstanding growth stories.
Which stocks stand out as crucial pieces for building exceptional portfolio returns? Let’s open the list and find out together.
Starting with Kornpat Worachet, Assistant Managing Director and Head of Research at Krungsri Securities, highlighted KBANK as a top pick in the "Investment & Re-rating Play" theme, noting that the Thai stock market is entering a new investment cycle similar to 2011-2017, which will significantly boost credit growth.
Additionally, KBANK has a stronger new revenue structure from its growing Wealth Management business, now accounting for 25-35%, surpassing levels seen in 2014.
Furthermore, KBANK has potential for further P/BV re-rating from its current 0.89 times, offers an attractive dividend yield above 6% annually, and an upside potential estimated between 20-40%.
Another option in the "Investment Plays" group is GPSC, representing the power plant sector that will directly benefit from the massive electricity demand driven by Data Center investments in Thailand, with the government preparing to revise the PDP plan to support this growth.
From a macro perspective, the current policy interest rate cycle has stabilized, and inflation is considered temporary, making power plants like GPSC, which rely on capital investment, well-positioned to grow in the new cycle.
Meanwhile, Phadol Wannarat, Deputy Managing Director and Head of Investment Analysis at Yuanta Securities (Thailand), recommended GULF, calling it the "King of Thai Stocks," confident that within 3-5 years GULF could become Thailand's largest market cap company.
GULF’s business structure focuses on the future economy, including power plants and recent expansion into Data Centers, AI technology, and potentially robotics (Humanoid) in the future.
When global tech stocks lose momentum and stocks like DELTA see P/E cuts, capital will flow into strong profit-growth stocks like GULF.
The latest merger strengthened GULF’s financial position, with a D/E ratio of only 0.9, enabling resilience in expanding new businesses and potential MSCI index weight increases from higher free float.
Yuanta also recommended TLI, a life insurance stock whose current price undervalues its strong fundamentals, trading at only 0.7 times Embedded Value, with an enticing dividend yield of 6.2%.
A key structural change this year is the tightening of Copayment criteria—stricter claim approvals for minor illnesses—expected to reduce trivial claims, lowering company costs and positively impacting profits starting from Q2 2026 onward.
Meanwhile, Pichai Lertsupongkit, CFP®, Chief Commercial Officer at Innovest X, views ADVANC as owning robust communication infrastructure, with about 46 million mobile subscribers—roughly half the country—and broadband services. Its average revenue per user (ARPU) is steadily rising due to reduced price competition and high entry barriers for new competitors. Owning its frequency spectrum lowers costs.
Additionally, ADVANC’s Data Center business supports growth, making it both defensive and growth-oriented, consistently paying dividends with a yield over 4%.
For those wanting to ride the AI technology growth wave, an attractive option is HANA, which is entering an AI-driven growth phase by producing related components like solid-state cooling devices, expected to start production around July.
AI-related revenue will gradually increase. Although early production requires close monitoring, the valuation offers significant upside, trading at about 20 times P/E compared with global tech supply chain peers trading around 100 times P/E, presenting an interesting opportunity.
Phadol Wannarat, Deputy Managing Director and Head of Investment Analysis at Yuanta Securities (Thailand), noted that Chinese tech giant ALIBABA is attractive valuation-wise, trading at a P/E of 18-19 times, cheaper than global tech stocks.
Its earnings are expected to recover this year as Chinese government policies begin to bear fruit and intense e-commerce price wars have subsided.
Besides its core business, ALIBABA has future-oriented operations such as Cloud and AI technologies, including the Qwen model licensed by Apple for features in China.
When discussing the global "King of AI," it must be NVIDIA, which not only owns AI chip technology but also has a strong financial position with cash and cash equivalents totaling about $80 billion, alleviating concerns about rising interest rates.
Regardless of industry competition in AI development, NVIDIA remains a central beneficiary.
Given that some Thai tech component manufacturers trade at P/E ratios above 80-100, investing in the world’s top technology owner NVIDIA at around 17-20 P/E offers a more valuable choice.
Meanwhile, Pichai Lertsupongkit, CFP®, Chief Commercial Officer at Innovest X, said Alphabet, Google's parent company, is an "AI Compounder," with growth compounding over time.
With a monopolistic ecosystem and billions of global users via platforms like Google Search, YouTube, Android, and Google Maps, the company holds enormous data.
Google is also a "Full Stack" AI player, developing its own chips without relying on others, with language models like Gemini, plus Data Center and Cloud businesses, enabling cost control and strong cash generation. It trades at about 23 times P/E.
Another stock is TENCENT, which is interesting as a hybrid of global platforms like Meta, Microsoft Gaming, and data infrastructure.
With 1.4 billion users on WeChat, Tencent has a comprehensive ecosystem covering chat, payment systems, e-commerce, ride-hailing, and health services.
Besides being a gaming giant, Tencent invests in many leading tech companies (e.g., Shopee, JD). Its massive user base supports AI technology expansion with low customer acquisition costs, making it a very strong tech stock.
Meanwhile, Kornpat Worachet, Assistant Managing Director and Head of Research at Krungsri Securities, recommended XIAOMI, which has impressively transformed from just a smartphone maker to a full "AI Lifestyle Company."
The company has built its own ecosystem extending into autonomous electric vehicles and robotics technology.
Despite past stock price declines due to consumption pressures in China, the price appears to have bottomed, making it an attractive opportunity to grow with the new innovation cycle.
Additionally, Innovest X shares a similar positive view on TENCENT, emphasizing that the key to benefiting from AI development is owning "massive data sets." Tencent truly owns the largest data collection in China, giving it a long-term AI leadership advantage.
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