Private equity (PE) firm 5X Capital is led by two young professionals, Lim Jet Liang and Natalie Tan, who have years of experience in finance and investing under their belts.

But behind them are even bigger players — a couple of well-known entrepreneurs and corporate figures who provide...

Feature: PE investors targeting overlooked SMEs

The Institute for Capital Market Research Malaysia (ICMR) published a report in April that offered a glimpse into some of the most pressing financial issues faced by Malaysians. For one, its survey found that 64% of Malaysians were either financially unstable or living paycheque to paycheque....

Trends: Avoid mixing retirement funds with emergency savings

Simple question. Why diversify when it just dilutes returns in an uptrend and still loses on the downside? It sounds like a reasonable question. A review of what is happening globally helps us answer it.

US fundamentals

In the US, the financial results for 1Q2023 so far have...

Pitfalls & Pitch Calls: Why diversify?

There has been a dramatic increase in investment scams and unlicensed activities since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the world. This is based on data collected from the Securities Commission Malaysia’s (SC) Investor Alert List (IAL) with a programming language known as Python.

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Cover Story: RED ALERT: Investment scams on the rise

Financial literacy, the knowledge of how to manage one’s money, is much needed among the general public. Many reports have pointed out that Malaysians in general do not have enough money saved in their bank accounts and are ill-prepared for emergencies as well as retirement.

The Ringgit...

Financial Literacy: Industry veterans lead the way in promoting financial literacy among youth

The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) will hold its annual financial technology (fintech) event, SCxSC, on May 31 at its building in Bukit Kiara.

The theme of this year’s event is GROW, a new initiative to spur growth in strategic and underserved sectors — in this case, the agricultur...

TheWall: SCxSC to focus on agriculture sector

In the early part of the year, a TikTok video by 17-year-old Zoe Gabriel went viral in the region and sparked a fierce debate among netizens over the meaning of luxury. In it, the Filipino teen, who lives in Singapore, thanked her dad for gifting her with her first “luxury handbag” and excitedly ...

Millennial Musings: Redefining a life of ‘luxury’

A rather wide protection gap has been a constant thorn in the Malaysian insurance landscape. For instance, only 25% of working adults among the lower-income household have some form of life insurance/family takaful cover, far lower than the 59% of working adults in the general population.

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Insurance: Insurtech players eyeing digital insurer licences

Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds, otherwise known as perpetual bonds issued by local banks, are investment instruments favoured by some institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals seeking attractive yields and returns.

According to information provided by the Bond Pricing Agency...

Cover Story: A wake-up call for investors of AT1 bonds

ChatGPT is an open-source generative artificial intelligence (AI) foundation model by OpenAI. If you go to the website, you can ask this AI model questions and get a response generated from all the data on the internet. ChatGPT is currently in its fourth iteration, with processing power in the tr...

Pitfalls & Pitch Calls: ChatGPT and the consumer

If you thought investing in public equities was risky, private equities could be even more so. I was in a front row seat when a company I had invested in through an equity crowdfunding (ECF) platform went belly up. Sad to say, RM2,000 went up in smoke after several years of investment.

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Comment: Valuable lessons learnt from losing money through ECF

(April 19): Ray Dalio plans to set up a branch of his family office in Abu Dhabi, part of the hedge fund billionaire’s deeper push into the Middle East.

The Bridgewater Associates founder has cultivated a close relationship with the United Arab Emirates leadership over several deca...

Ray Dalio set to open branch of family office in Abu Dhabi

China and Hong Kong’s markets have surged by a third since the lows last November, as the easing of pandemic curbs puts these economies back in business. Yet, with short- and long-term opportunities on the horizon, it is not too late for investors to consider increasing their allocations to Chine...

Investing Strategies: Abrdn: Not too late to increase allocation to Chinese equities

On Feb 1, the US Federal Reserve raised the fed funds rate by 25 basis points (bps) to a range of 4.50% to 4.75%. The decision of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) was unanimous. 

FOMC chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged that inflation was moving in the right direction and t...

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