savoy078

When I heard the formation of Harapan Fund, I thought it must be a joke. It would take a lot from Malaysians to even get to RM1bn, and we are talking of RM1,000bn here. After mulling for a while, I think its a splendid idea: a) we need to stop any other fake funds from duping the public for the same cause b) no matter how little each of us contribute, we need to feel we have the same vision and hope to "right" the government finances c) if we say, my one contribution will not matter... thats the same as saying my one vote won't matter ... it is our every "one vote" that carried democracy and brought about a change in government in spite of outrageous gerrymandering and other obstacles stacked against us d) we are reminded of the great outpouring of support by the South Koreans during their financial crisis... they netted over US$2bn... its not the sum, its the solidarity There was a cunning snippet suggesting that each TanSri contribute RM10m, and each Dat...

There's basically no better way to describe these counters. Tainted might be least offensive word. To all investors, again many will go back to the crudest, simplest form of decision making - anchor and adjust. We anchor on what we know, and adjust for new information. Hence something that was 3.60 before the election and now stands at 1.60 looks mighty tempting. But we also know the new paradigm will also means that to get back to the 3.60 is almost inconceivable. Glory to the risk takers. These counters will have a lot of volatility, downs and rebounds. Rumours and newsflow will be flying like fake news in a thunderstorm of hope and lies. Day traders and prop traders will love these counters, hence beware of getting caught by them. What Might Happen To Them - These counters while tainted, are not like BN appointees whom you can just fire. If they are found to be in cohorts with previous government in doing "illegal activities" such as: collusion, bid rigging, over prici...

Senior Corporate / Investment Pros / Company Owners .. I Hate Its funny how many times investment pros get asked to do a deal on a contingent basis - i.e. only get paid if the deal gets done. I wonder what would our parents think when we tell them that we work on a contingency basis, after they have spent their life time savings sending us to college. What is this mentality, this contingent mentality - it happens way too often in Asia, not so much in First world countries. Our brains do not matter, effort does not matter, only success??  Why the aversion from commitment fee, engagement fee, out of pocket expenses?? You go and try to get some US investment bankers on a contingency deal - they'd laugh at you. Are some people not worth a salary? When you take advantage of people like the situations cited above, you are a parasite and a leech - you suck people dry, you will not share till you've got your share, you will be rich though but not many will cherish your time on earth....

If ever there was a song or a piece of music that deserves its own special posting, it has to be Clair de Lune. You cannot even call it a song as that seems to be belittling the music. Yes, it has to be called that masterpiece composition by Claude Debussy. If you ever needed to find solace, calmness and one with the world, just listen to Clair de Lune, possibly my favourite piece of music ever, and I am sure many of you feel the same. If ever I were to get lost on an island for years, and I can only have one piece of music... this would be it. Listening to Clair de Lune kind of makes me feel that all people of the earth are so alike. I don't think anyone on earth do not feel the same when they listen to this song ~ any race, any nationality, any political affiliation, any religious group, everyone ~ we all feel the same kind of wonderment and will be moved by it. Coincidence or the humanity of it all. Translated, its called Moonlight, named after Paul Verlaine's poem of the sa...

Nobody is spooking anyone by revealing the level of debt the country is facing. Before we can properly address the debt, we have to be honest and come clean. No point pussyfooting here. Some said that that jolted the markets. While the stock market is an important aspect for a open trading country like Malaysia, volatility in the market cannot be minimised at the expense of the greater good. I believe most Malaysians would not mind suffering over the short term as long as the good of the country is being prioritised. There are rules in placed where federal government’s debt-to-GDP ratio should be lower than the 55% self-imposed debt limit. If the previous government deliberately misled or went over that limit, as it appears to be so, there should be "censures" and a deliberation on possible legal consequences for the mismanagement and misinformation. (not trying to trivialise the matter, but have a look at our current standing among the rest of the world, while I balked at 8...

Investing Funds I have spoken on this in the past. We have about 1,100 listed companies and the majority are the market capitalisation of RM500m. We already have a situation whereby local pension funds are finding it tough to investable vehicles locally. Hence the need to invest an increasing amount overseas. Thats all fine. However most funds cannot invest in small caps, hence you find many decent small caps not having the support of long term funds on their register. Yes, there are plenty of under performing and even dubious small cap counters. But we are not helping matters by ignoring the small caps. Part of the reason why so many small caps have to resort to "manipulative" share price activities to "make money" is due to a lack of genuine long term funds participating in small caps. If the situation is remedied, we can see an explosion of interest in good small caps. In the longer term, small caps will alter their behaviour to pursue good financial managemen...

Suffice to say, most market commentators got their predictions wrong, following Pakatan Harapan's victory. Below was the market poll of their views: *Market Poll* JP MORGAN - Medium Term Sell RHB - Negative/Sell UBS - FBMKLCI  1504-1655 MORGAN STANLEY - Underweight FIDELITY - Downward bias NOMURA - Underweight FX - 12 months Ringgit 4.20-4.30  ALLIANCEDBS - Buy on dips DBS - Downside Risk CAPITAL ECONOMICS - Sell IHS Markit - Sell Even my favourite business magazine, covered their asses with a premature salvo. The issue arrived in my mailbox on Tuesday 8 May, the issue was dated 30 April ... Again, we do not fathom why people get paid big bucks to write nonsense. You get the election results wrong, ok I can understand cause you may not get the pulse of the nation. Or you believed in the machinery of the previous government. Or you believed that the shennanigans, gerrymandering, scare tactics were sufficient to brush aside the power of democracy. Not getting the election result...