New High Again (Not KLCI), Stay or Leave?

The image above shows the number of Covid-19 cases in the first week of MCO 1.0 in March last year. There was 106 new cases reported on 24th March 2020.

At that time, people were like scared to death and no one dared to come out from their home. Face masks were quickly running out of stock.

We thought that it was very serious when South Korea registered over 500 cases per day, and there was also that terrifying Japan cruise ship cluster.

Time really flies. Now it's already mid July 2021 and the daily new Covid-19 cases in Malaysia has reached a record high of 13,215 on 15th July 2021.

As of today, our accumulated Covid-19 cases has reached 893,323 cases while it's only 175,000 cases for South Korea.

Ironically, now people are not as scared as during March last year.

Do you still remember how was the stock market like at this time last year?

In July 2020, stock markets worldwide were having a really good time unexpectedly.

In Malaysia, most stocks especially medical gloves and technology stocks soared to the sky and the overall trading volume increased tremendously compared to previous years.

It's clear that there were many newbies joining the stock market. Most of them put their money in the stock market for the first time and made money in a short period of time.

They might said: "Wow, making money in the stock market is so easy. I should have joined earlier."

At the moment, our stock market in Malaysia is definitely not doing well at all.

While almost all other stock markets are going up this year, ours are heading to the opposite direction.

From 1,627 points at the end of year 2020, the index has dropped 6.5% to 1,522 points today.

Since February this year, making money in the stock market suddenly seems so difficult. Some might have been "trapped" or already left the "boring" stock market.

To me, the sluggish performance of Malaysia stock market is mainly due to two reasons: failure in controlling Covid-19 cases and political instability. 

The Covid-19 situation in Klang Valley is extremely bad, with the healthcare system there totally overwhelmed.

Our hope of recovery is mainly placed on Covid-19 vaccination now, and luckily we seem to do it quite well with over 400,000 doses given in a day.

I think credit need to be given accordingly to the government in term of this.

At current rate, over 12 million doses can be given in one month and surely we can achieve herd immunity in the next 2 months.

Malaysia has about 32.7mil population and currently over 4 million have completed 2 doses of the vaccines.

Nevertheless, we still need to pray that the vaccines work well.

We know that Covid-19 vaccines will not give 100% protection from getting Covid-19 infection.

Different types of vaccines have their own numbers and it ranges from 60-90% protection from infection.

So, it's foreseeable that we will hear more "complaints" that someone still tested positive for Covid-19 despite completed one or two doses of the vaccines.

Anyway, the most important thing is that even though we can still get infected after vaccination, the severity and risk of dying from the infection are greatly reduced.

Vaccines help to save lives!

If the vaccines don't work as expected, especially against possible future super powerful variants, then it will be a long road towards recovery.

From what I understand from the National Recovery Plan, there won't be whole country or whole state lockdown anymore. There will only be targeted area lockdown.

Despite high number of new cases, our government has decided to lift the EMCO in Klang Valley starting from tomorrow.

So, if our daily Covid-19 cases really breach 20,000 mark in the next few days, I guess people might not react too much to it as everyone is already numb towards the numbers now.

As for Malaysia stock market, it's undoubtedly quite boring to many but some might be excited about the opportunity to buy low.

Certain investors might have succumbed to fear and frustration because whatever undervalued stocks they bought in the last few months were not performing well.

So they feel that it's better to leave the stock market altogether as the worst is yet to come.

Some other investors might want to be a contrarian to buy when the market is pessimistic, and think that the worst will be over as Covid-19 herd immunity is within reach soon. 

Even though financial results of Q2 of 2021 for most companies might not be very good, investors are usually forward looking and might only look at the good time ahead.

No one can predict the future with 100% accuracy. We should not only listen to one person while making a decision. 

We should be responsible to our own decisions and not blaming others when we are proven to be wrong.

To stay or to leave, it's your own choice.