Saturday, July 10, 2021

Sentiment / Political Uncertainty

 I am sure many traders and investors were quite pissed off with the markets for the last 3 days. Just when everyone have been hunkering down and bearing out the weak local markets for the last 5 weeks ... just when the market showed brilliant signs of life 4 days ago ... we get dragged down by a fierce wave of selling because of sentiment or more correctly "political sentiment".

Is that a thing? I guess so. The newbies will question how political sentiment affects earnings and outlook - I mean will the guy harvesting palm oil bunches be so put off by the potential change in politics that he/she worked less hard? You can drum up thousands of examples here of how workers and employers might react.

Realistically changes in political spectrum may only change the main beneficiaries, the players remain the same kind. We also have to acknowledge the timing of the uncertainty - were we on a high or we were at an ebbing low? If it was the former then taking some chips off the table seems fair and smart. If it was the latter, and WE WERE in the latter, what then?

Ebbing low (you may choose to replace the word "ebbing" with another "ing" word if you prefer) - Look at where we ARE: Covid cases approaching 10,000 a day though we are finally ramping up vaccination rates of late; the country has been enduring the longest number of days of various types of lockdowns compared to 99% of other countries anywhere; and you may also put in the longest "non-convening of parliament" as well.

Whats not mentioned was that as of last couple of days, Bursa index has hit new lows not seen since August 2015.

So, when you say there is political uncertainty .... is that a bad thing for the markets? I mean you all can draw economics curve, when you are at the low or lowest points on the graph, you can only move up. In particular, when you are on a curve that is ebbing lower and lower, you need a catalyst to change that curve's direction. No change or no catalyst, means continuance of fresh lows.


https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/pm-muhyiddin-malaysia-who-replace-bersatu-zahid-najib-anwar-15158310


https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/malaysia-politics-umno-pn-muhyiddin-cabinet-zahid-ismail-covid-15180368


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