Jul. 16--Health-care providers may see benefits from the H1N1 influenza outbreak, resulting in improving revenue for listed hospital companies in the second half of the year, according to Poramet Tongbua, head of equity research at Tisco Securities.

He made the comment yesterday at a seminar highlighting an in-depth study of 30 stocks in the FTSE SET Large Cap Index.

The ThaiDEX FTSE SET Large Cap ETF (TFTSE) is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that will invest in 30 companies in the FTSE SET Large Cap, similar to an index fund. The fund will have its initial public offering from July 20-27.

As of the end of June, the top three sectors selected in the FTSE SET Large Cap Index were banks with a weighting of 34.39 percent, oil and gas at 25.9 percent, and mobile and telecommunication companies at 8.7 percent.

The top 10 constituents are PTT, BBL, SCB, PTTEP, KBANK, SCC, ADVANC, BANPU, BAY and CPALL.

One Asset Management is fund manager. KGI is a market maker and a trader of investment units. Citicorp, Tisco Securities, Kim Eng, Thanachart Securities, and Bualuang Securities are traders of investment units. Citibank is the custodian.

Investors in the ETF can invest in many stocks at lower cost with high liquidity and can diversify risk.

Discussing investment on the SET, Mr Poramet said that the SET Index was still at risk of dropping to 500 points -- it closed yesterday at 587.86 -- so investors should focus on defensive stocks such as the hospital business which can expect increasing patient visits as a result of the H1N1 flu.

For the banking sector, although operating results for this year might drop, the results would not be unexpected due to the squeeze in lending growth, he said. Operating results for 2010 are expected to show an improvement of at least 20 percent following lending growth if the economy recovers. There is also a good sign that non-performing loans have become more controllable over the past few quarters.

For CPALL, one of companies in the latest ETF fund, Mr Poramet said that although domestic consumption was shrinking, the company's revenue continued growing. The 7-Eleven store operator plans to expand its network by another 500 branches this year, which is a positive factor for the company's operating results.

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