Asia Financial Crisis (AFC) - Malaysia

Suddenly have a burning urge to blog about Malaysia and what happened to her in the AFC.

My memories of AFC had been very vague as it struck SG in the midst of 97-98, when I was busy playing arcade, having tuition and preparing for my PSLE. I could vaguely recall that my mum was complaining of " 经济不景气，不要乱花钱。。" those kind of thing. Also, my maths teacher, which was the HOD of maths that time, turned quite moody out of the blues and really tekaned us that time by shouting at us rentlessly and flung our work out of the window those kind of thing. Coming to think, I seriously think that he lost quite abit of his value in his equity portfolio. ( stocks )

Oh come on, dun tell me you're a HOD of maths and you dun play stocks. I wun believe la. But i was too young to decipher all these until having deeper knowledge about AFC and the current US FC.

So.. back to the main story. I could VIVIDLY remember that my aunt, representing our big family in equity management ( help us buy share ) telling all of us in 1 of the sunday gathering 1 decade ago: "Wa jin pai seh leh. Le lang di jiu hu leh kor pio dio tat liao. Liu gia buay cut lai liao.."
(Your stock money invested in M'sia was stuck there and cannot be withdrawn)

I remembered it was a quite sizable amount of $$ at that time and in the midst of that recession, this bad news struck our family and relatives very badly. Cause all of them thought "stock market = easy money, bao jia 1.", which turned to be quite the opposite.

So what happened in M'sia exactly? The relative immaturity of the finance sector with speculators rentless attacks on our ASEAN currencies forced M'sia to impose capital control - one of the easiest way to defend your currency. (Capital control means no money can flow in/out within the country, which explains why the m'sian eqity we bought eventually 'died' there, dun ask me about the mechanism about defence of your currency, quite hard to explain. Need explanation ask me f2f).

So.. 10years had passed. And I have grown more knowledgable. So what happened 1 decade ago left me with new insights. When I read business times, I would just skip the M'sia equity news. Why? Bcoz the confidence is no longer there. People no longer want to hold m'sian equity because the government had shattered confidences of millions by finding such a easy way out 1 decade ago.

Also, look at the politics there. Usually politics and economics go hand by hand, side by side. The political turmoil there isnt gona subside any sooner.( I aint gona comment about the politic part)

So lessons learnt from AFC M'sia
a) Do not invest in anything you dont know
b) Do not invest just because your relative ask you to do so (No offence, B B)
c) Do not invest in places with political instability as chances of profitting is also increasing uncertain despite cheap share price.
d) Stay away from M'sia stock market.

P.S: no offence to my malaysian friends. Pls dun flood my chatbox! =X