Fintech Entrepreneur (Founder & CEO @HalogenCapital & ex-@RinggitPlus) & Fund Manager in KL 🇲🇾. Also a stats nerd trying to make finance easy for Malaysians.
Aug 14 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
EPF 🇲🇾released their 1H 2024 report yesterday!
Headline numbers:
- a 29% increase in investment income from RM28.4bn 1H23 to RM36.7bn. 🚀 🚀
- RM1.21 Trn record high assets
- 39% overseas investments, 61% domestic
What does this mean for @KWSPMalaysia 2024 Dividends? 🧵
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Yesterday, EPF released their 1H 2024 report here:
The EPF portfolio:
- AUM: RM1,211,530,000,000
- Asset Class: 43% Equities, 46% Bonds, 4% Money markets, 7% Real Estate/Infra (no change)
- Geography: 39% Overseas 🌏, 61% Domestic 🇲🇾 (no change)
Every Malaysian 🇲🇾 earning >RM4,000 / month can potentially make RM100s if not RM1,000s in the next few days, before 31 December 2023.
Maximise your tax reliefs in YA 2023 (spend by 31 Dec 2023, submit Mar-Apr 2024).
A thread 🧵:
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Everyone living in Malaysia 🇲🇾 earning >RM4,000 will have a tax file with LHDN.
For salaried employees, employer only asks (1) are you married (2) how many kids you have.
They use that info & follow a table (PCB) to deduct off your salary and pay to LHDN monthly.
2/n
Oct 15, 2023 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Malaysia's 🇲🇾 Budget 2024 was tabled on Friday!
Here's my ultimate Budget 2024 breakdown thread, with all my initial thoughts and deep dives, so you can sound a little smarter when talking with people at work next week 🤓
Let's dive in 🧵 :
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On Friday, PM @anwaribrahim tabled the Budget for 2024. 💼
Remember, the national budget is for the government🏦 (eg. taxes, govt spending) and not for MY as a whole which includes:
- corporates/SMEs 🏢
- households 🏘️
- international 🌏
each with a 'budget' of their own.
2/n
Aug 15, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
EPF 🇲🇾released their 1H 2023 report today!
Headline numbers:
- a 40% increase in investment income from RM23.75bn to RM33.19bn. 🚀 🚀
- RM1.082 Trn record high assets
- 38.7% overseas investments, 61.3% domestic
What does this mean for our KWSP 2023 Dividend? 🧵
1/n
Today, EPF dropped a fairly large half-yearly summary report here:
Every Malaysian 🇲🇾 earning >RM4,000 / month can potentially make RM100s if not RM1,000s in the next few days, before 31 December 2022.
Maximise your tax reliefs in YA 2022 (spend by 31 Dec 2022, submit Mar-Apr 2023).
A thread 🧵 how:
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Everyone living in Malaysia 🇲🇾 earning >RM4,000 will have a tax file with LHDN.
For salaried employees, employer only asks (1) are you married (2) how many kids you have.
They use that info and follow a table (PCB) to deduct off your salary and pay to LHDN monthly.
2/n
Oct 7, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Malaysia's 🇲🇾Budget 2023 was tabled in Parliament by our Finance Minister @tzafrul_aziz on 7 Oct.
Was it actually 'good'? How can the average rakyat figure out what it means for them?
I read through 100s of pages, will summarise it here so you don't have to 🧵 :
1/n
A country's Budget is similar to a personal budget. That is, see what you earn, and then plan what you're gonna spend for the year.
🇲🇾 2023
Revenue: RM272.6 bn
Spend: RM372.3 bn
Spend > Earn ❗
Countries 'can' do that, and the difference is called a Budget Deficit.
2/n
Sep 26, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Today BNM 🏛️ issued a 5 point plan headline to protect us Malaysians 🇲🇾 better against financial scams.
But is it a case of too little too late?
I've seen a financial scam or two or ten in my 15+ years in financial services, so let's dig deeper into it 🧵 #️⃣
1/n
There are many types of scams, the most common uses greed ("great investment returns!") or fear ("LHDN/PDRM saman!") to ask for your bank details or transfer money.
Just a part of a bigger issue causing over RM5.2bn lost over the past 2 years.
Inflation in Malaysia 🇲🇾 for August 2022 just got released, 🔺4.7% YoY 🔥🔥
This is the highest in 16 months, and starting to creep up to levels not seen since the energy and commodity crisis in 2008 ‼️
A quick little thread from a finance nerd 🧵
1/n@StatsMalaysia released Malaysia's August 2022 CPI numbers, but strangely the headline they put January - August 2022 at 3.1% rather than the usual format Aug 2022 at 4.7% YoY.
They did it last month for July 2022's when it was 4.4% YoY.
Malaysia's 🇲🇾 inflation rate was announced today -> up 🔺4.4% YoY in July 2022! 🔥🔥🔥
This is from an already high +3.4% YoY in June 2022.
How does our govt actually calculate inflation, and why does it always 'feel' higher than reported?
We need to dig to find out 🧵 :
1/n
First, how does our govt measure inflation? The Consumer Price Index (CPI).
@StatsMalaysia has a team which scans prices of 552 items in 12 groups:
- Food 🍲
- Transport 🚗🚂
- Clothes 👚
- Housing & Utilities 🏠
- Healthcare ⚕️
- Education 🧑🎓
- Hotels/Restaurants 🏨
- etc
2/n
Aug 11, 2022 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
The next 🇲🇾 BNM MPC meeting is on 7 & 8 Sep.
I think that +25bps in the OPR is locked in, so we are going from 2.25% -> 2.50% 🔺. That will make it 3 in a row since May 2022.
Everyone's home loan installments are going up again next month.
Here's why I think so 🧵:
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The BNM Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)'s job is to 'support a sustainable economic growth in an environment of price stability'.
Layman: Keep GDP steady up 🔺, keep inflation low 🔻.
It does this through OPR ie loan rates, ie installment costs.
1/n
Yesterday I tweeted on Malaysia's 🇲🇾 unemployment rate being at a pre-pandemic low of 3.8% (good news!) and how we should look deeper at participation & underemployment (not so good).
But I didn't explain much on how we could make things better.
Malaysia's 🇲🇾Unemployment Rate in June 2022 came in at 3.8% today.
This is back to pre-pandemic lows (less jobless people, good news!), but to understand if things are as good as they seem, we need to dig deeper.
An Malaysia unemployment thread 🧵 by a finance nerd:
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Why does the unemployment rate matter to regular Malaysians like us?
Unemployment Rate = % of people looking for work who don't have a job.
It matters, because if too many people have no jobs => no income => low output => recession + crime🔺. And that affects us all.
2/n
Aug 8, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
It's 2022 in Malaysia, and we have a massive retirement time bomb 💣coming.
The big number today was ~ RM145bn withdrawn from KWSP in the past 2 years, but we need to dig deeper to find out how bad this actually is.
A thread on the 🇲🇾 retirement crisis by a finance nerd 🧵
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Our Deputy FM announced in parliament today some worrying EPF stats:
- RM145bn withdrawn for i-Sinar, i-Lestari etc.
- 25% working ppl have < RM1,000 (ie nothing).
- 52% working ppl have < RM10,000 (ie almost nothing).
Malaysia's inflation in June 2022 was🔺3.4% YoY (highest in >1 year).
But to fully understand what's happening, you need to look further under the hood.
A thread 🧵
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While 3.4% YoY increase CPI sounds comparatively low (vs. other countries), you need to look further at the building blocks of the Consumer Price Index (CPI):
Food🔺6.1%
Transport🔺5.4%
Restaurants/Hotels🔺5.0%
Those 3 items account for almost half (~47%) of the basket.
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