There is more economic indicators than petrol price

Yep, this is the only economic number most Malaysians have a close watch on it if there are not investing or trading. In fact, RM 2.08 RON95 price cap was able to flagged as front page for most newspapers yesterday. Well, given that Malaysians are tarting to pick up reading, I am sure they can do better when it comes to finance and economy analysis at individual level which may reflect on their spending trends.

I ain't not referring to Gross Domestic Product or commonly abbreviated as GDP. The number is usually modified to please those economically ignorant and real investor looks at more numbers which reflects on that specific country.

Let's kick starts with something that are related to you and I, consumer - Consumer confidence and spending.
In a normal economy, consumer spending increases as years go by due to population growth and inflation. However, the same cannot be applied to consumer confidence which is roughly defined as consumers' confidence toward how much they can buy with their money (buying power). If you are familiar with Malaysia recent political situation, you can roughly know why there is a rally up of consumer confidence somewhere around May 2018. What goes up fast, it goes down fast, too. People are still weighing how new economic policies are impacting their lifestyle and certain groups of people are starting to doubt how such regime change could bring new hope. Such chart kind of telling me that people are going back to the situation where they spend with less confidence (buying mostly essentials with higher price). Let's see whether retail sales data could provide us some insight.
Hmm, looks normal, isn't it? People still buy with cyclical patterns though we see a huge draw down on September 2018. This could probably due to commencement of new taxation (Sales and Service Tax) which is meant to replace Good and Service Tax implemented by previous central government. In fact, our item price is still stable if you look at our Consumer Price Index,
Now, there is certain gloomy part in our economy which may haunt us from behind.
Those working in manufacturing industry could tell you that they are more relax recently as Malaysia is having contracted PMI for the third consecutive months. Reading below 50 is considered contraction for economist and while manufacturing is no longer the major component for certain country or region, I bet it is still plays a big role in determining a country economy health or a state income (such as Penang where we have lots of US plants here). As a exporting country, weak MYR over USD does give us some edges over our output to buying countries, those who buys import stuff may not be happy with our weakening currency (though I'd rather say our currency is actually more stable compare to neighboring emerging countries).

I don't trade local equity because our markets are small and trading volume is pathetic as compare to biggest markets globally (US) so don't ask me what to buy. I am assuming if you are asking this, you don't know what to do when it comes to investing your hard earned money.

Why not join us? My mentor is having an online course preview on 27 March (Sun) 2pm, Webinar at this address: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ptt.preview/

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https://www.financialscents.com/pttmy/?fbclid=IwAR0uJXRdG2-9a2DrOMuEUGaPUYFD4oMv9i-oXWzulemec_40WM0vip-H5c8

Remember, knowledge is power.

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