☕️ GE15 KYC (know your candidates) interactive map by Malaysiakini

1. MARKET SUMMARY

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE

1,386 candidate nomination papers were received by the Election Commission (EC) during the 15th general election (GE) nomination session.

• 945 for parliamentary seats (four rejected)

• 434 for state seats (two rejected)

• 7 for Bugaya by-election.

• Oldest candidate at 96 (who else?) and the youngest at 23

Taking out the rejected tickets, that’s a national average of 4.24 candidates per seat. The Batu parliamentary seat has the most candidates — 10.

Covid-19 numbers are inching up again as the Health Ministry reported 4,621 new daily cases on Saturday, bringing the total active cases to 36,582 — an increase of 33.6% compared to two weeks ago. Please practice good hygiene and stay safe.

Gone in 120 seconds — the time it took for the top executives of Adidas, Europe's largest sportswear manufacturer, to make their final decision to cut ties with Kanye West after the latter’s antisemitic remarks. The end of the partnership is expected to eat into Adidas’ profits — about USD246 mil.

“It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”

- Charlie Munger, vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and long-time business partner of Warren Buffett.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

GE15 updates:

1. Malaysiakini will be providing free access to their website until Nov 20. The news portal also listed 24 hot seats to watch and created an interactive map for you to know your candidate. Below are some interesting ones:

   1. Arau: Barisan Nasional (BN) axed its incumbent, Shahidan Kassim, prompting the latter to jump ship to Perikatan Nasional (PN).

   2. Sungai Siput: The seat has been an MIC stronghold since 1959 until Pakatan Harapan (PH) won the seat in 2018. MIC president SA Vigneswaran is looking to reclaim the seat for BN.

   3. Tambun: Incumbent Ahmad Faizal Azumu takes on his former ally, Anwar Ibrahim.

   4. Bagan Datuk: Ahmad Zahid Hamidi faces giant-slayer Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin (PKR) — who twice defeated former Malacca chief minister Ali Rustam at the polls

   5. Gombak: Incumbent Azmin Ali vs Selangor’s MB Amirudin Shari.

   6. Sungai Buloh: Khairy Jamaluddin is fighting in a PH stronghold against six other candidates. PH is fielding R Ramanan, a former MIC leader with a chequered past.

   7. PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli was not happy with PKR president Anwar Ibrahim’s choice for Sungai Buloh but brushed it aside as he said, “Not only are differing opinions within a party important for growth, but they are also crucial to avoiding a party filled with yes-men.” Current MP Sivarasa Raisah said he was dropped at the eleventh hour due to health issues (problems with vocal cords, needs speech amplifier), a concern DSAI has raised about his ability to manage his campaign.

2. UMNO bids goodbye to traitors — members who have become candidates, proposers and supporters of rival parties in the 15th general election have been sacked from the party.

3. Syahredzan Johan, DAP’s candidate for the Bangi, said GE15 is the country’s last chance to decide Malaysia’s future — voters will determine whether the country will be on “a path of no return” with kleptocrats and the corrupt holding positions.

Penang needs more land

The Penang government intends to carry out more land reclamation activities to increase the state’s land reserves for housing. State Housing, Local Government, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo said land reclamation is one of the methods to ensure the next generation has housing.

Land reclamation plans in Penang have been marred with controversies. Under the Penang South Reclamation (PSR), Bayan Lepas assemblyman Azrul Mahathir Aziz questioned the state government’s planned allocation of only 0.2% of the total 4,500 acres under the PSR to Malay Muslims. The PSR project also received criticisms from environmentalists, who claim the project will bury the state’s richest fishing and most biodiverse area.

Watch: How land reclamation works

Maxis’ earnings came in below expectations while Capital A hurries to get out of PN17

Maxis Bhd reported a net profit of RM315 mil for 3QFY22, ended Sept 30, 2022, a 3.1% decrease YoY, mainly due to the prosperity tax “cukai makmur”. However, the telecommunication service provider saw its quarterly revenue increase by 5.9% YoY to RM2.41 bil. The telco declared a third interim dividend of five sen per share.

Capital A Bhd seeks Providence Strategic Partners Sdn Bhd, an independent market researcher, to help develop a proposed Practice Note 17 (PN17) regularisation plan. Capital A has less than three months to finalise the regularisation plan to meet Bursa Malaysia’s deadline of January 2023.

Monsoon coming in earlier than expected

According to the Meteorology Department, the Northeast Monsoon season will start today (Nov 7), earlier than expected. The season is expected to last until March next year. The department warned that there are potentially four to six episodes of monsoon surges that will bring continuous heavy rains throughout this period. The rains, if they coincide with large tidal surges, will increase the probability of floods.

The tidal surges are predicted to occur on:

• Nov 6 to Nov 11 and Nov 22 to Nov 27

• Dec 7 to Dec 12 and Dec 22 to Dec 26

• Jan 6 to Jan 10 and Jan 21 to Jan 25 next year.

If floods get in the way of the upcoming election, PM Sabri said the Election Commission (EC) has the right to postpone GE15 in the event major floors occur during the campaign period. Practically everyone except UMNO has warned of this risk.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

Twitter’s transformation/overhaul/destruction (for your interpretation) under new Chief Twit Elon Musk so far:

1. Elon Musk justified Twitter’s mass layoff that saw half of its workforce (3,700) being let go saying in a tweet that the company is losing USD4 mil a day. Clearly, many staff were not happy — Twitter was sued in a class action lawsuit without giving proper legal notice, which requires 60 days of advance notice. 

2. In another attempt to cut costs, a “Deep Cuts Plan” is being implemented to slash Twitter’s infrastructure costs by USD1 bil a year, finding between USD1.5-3 mil a day in savings from servers and cloud services. 

3. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and CEO who stepped down less than a year ago, breaks his silence for the first time since the deal was closed. He apologised for the mass layoff, claiming responsibility and saying that he “grew the company size too quickly”. 

World’s most valuable fintech unicorn Stripe cuts 14% of its workforce

Last valued at USD95 bil, payment giant Stripe announced it’s laying off 14% of its workforce, affecting 1,120 of its 8,000 workforce. In the email (read it here) sent by its co-founder and CEO Patrick Collison, he acknowledged that the company made “two very consequential mistakes”:

How Stripe conducted and made its layoff announcement has been widely praised online and should be a lesson for companies everywhere on how to conduct layoffs.

Commodities: bribery fine and LNG hoarding

• Commodities trading giant Glencore fined GBP276 mil for bribery, a slap on the wristA London court has fined the giant GBP276 mil after it pleaded guilty to coordinating a sprawling effort to bribe government officials to secure access to oil cargoes between 2011 and 2016 across five nations, including Nigeria and Cameroon. Glencore’s employees and agents had givens bribes worth USD27 mil during this period. The fine represents about half a week’s profit for the firm - it made USD100 mil a day in the first six months of the year as it is a beneficiary of the global energy crunch. UK authorities are still considering whether to bring charges against the employees who carried out the bribery. In May, it was fined USD1 bil by the US in separate bribery and market manipulation cases. 

• Tankers carrying liquified natural gas idling at sea in Europe, waiting for higher market pricesMore than 30 tankers carrying USD2 bil worth of LNG are idling off the coast of Europe as traders are holding out for higher market prices with winter approaching. Even if it wants to offload now, access has been restricted as storage sites have filled up. It costs about USD100,000 a day to charter an LNG tanker. 

Shorts:

1. Following a visit to China by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Chinese President Xi Jinping has pressed world leaders to stop making threats and prevent the use of nuclear weapons in Europe and Asia. China is one of the nine countries with nuclear weapons. 

2. Despite China’s relentless zero-Covid policy, it reported its highest number of new infections in six months, recording 4,420 new locally transmitted infections on Saturday. 

3. Thousands of London protesters have gone on a demonstration in a protest called Britain is Broken to demand an immediate general election, action on low pay and the repeal of “anti-union” employment laws amid a worsening cost-of-living crisis in the UK. Fortunately, no one got water cannon-ed during this protest. 

5. FOR YOUR EYES 👁👁

1. US personal savings are near historic lows at 3.1% as of Aug 31, 2022, while credit cards loan reaches historic highs.

1. 500 drones lighting up the sky of New York to celebrate 10 years of Candy Crush. Some interesting stats on Candy Crush here.