☕️ Muhyiddin's Bersatu presidency u-turn

1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

As of November 15, a total of 17,300 mental health screenings have been conducted since the introduction of the MyMinda module on the MySejahtera application on October 21 — that’s 692 cases daily on average (almost one every two minutes!). Health Minister Dr. Zaliha Mustafa informed the Dewan Rakyat that, of this total, 23% (3,983 individuals) were identified as having risks of depression, and 15% (2,592 individuals) were found to be at risk for anxiety. If you need to talk to someone, please seek the necessary help. You may call the Heal Line at 15555.

10 million — the number of subscribers The New York Times has, as revealed in its third-quarter report. The New York Times reported an addition of 210,000 net digital-only subscribers in the three months through September, bringing its total to 9.41 mil, in addition to 670,000 print subscribers. The Times reported an adjusted operating profit of USD89.8 mil for the quarter, marking a 30.1% increase from the same period a year earlier. Please spread the word and get The Coffee Break to 10 mil subscribers.

The S&P 500 has seen a 19% increase this year, with just eight days accounting for most of the gains. Nicholas Colas at DataTrek points out that there have been only 11 more up days than down days this year (113 up, 102 down), yet the S&P 500 has recorded a year-to-date gain of 19%. This goes to show that market timing — the idea that you can predict the future direction of stock prices and act accordingly — is not a successful investing strategy.  In conclusion, time in the market > timing the market. 

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

Azilah told me that this was a special operation for the Deputy Prime Minister - SirulSirul Azhar Umar, one of two former Najib Razak’s bodyguards who were convicted of murdering Altantuya Shaariibuu in 2006, revealed in an exclusive interview with Al-Jazeera (watch here), that he was instructed by his superior, Azilah Hadri that the unfortunate incident against Altantunya was a special operation for then Deputy Prime Minister at that time which was Najib Razak. Recently, Sirul was released from the Australian Government's detention and subsequently pleaded with the local Australians to accept him as a member of the community. During his detention at Down Under, he claimed that he received RM1 mil from unnamed sources for his silence on the Altantunya’s murder.

In response to the allegations brought by Sirul, Najib’s counsel Shafee and Co., on behalf of Najib Razak, denies all allegations made by Sirul and maintains Najib’s innocence in the death of Altantunya.

At this moment in time, commenting on the matter, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution stated that both Sirul and Azilah were sentenced to death in the gruesome murder (shot and the body blown to pieces) of Altantuya. However, only Azilah applied for a review of his death sentence which was denied in 2020. Now, Azilah is counting the days before his imminent death sentence.

One thing that Muhyiddin and Tun Dr Mahathir have in common — love to U-turnsAfter pulling a Mahathir by announcing that he will not be contesting for the president’s post for the upcoming Bersatu election, the current Bersatu president, Muhyiddin Yassin made a U-turn (another Mahathir trademark move) and announced that he will stay for another term during the Bersatu’s 6th Annual General Meeting (AGM). In his speech during the AGM, Muhyiddin stated that he got his wife's blessing to continue serving as the president. ‘I then agreed to stay on for the last term, to which she replied, ‘This is for the nation. Abah must stay on’,’ said Muhyiddin. Muhyiddin’s words are too cringey for us so we just quote him. Plus, please watch this ‘easter egg’ below on how Muhyiddin is slowly turning from a political meme into an irrelevant joke.

Political analysts said that Muhyiddin’s recent actions were to test the waters, aiming at gauging support from party members. What do you think?

It is the rain & flood season, so please be careful

1. The continuous heavy downpour has led to flash floods at Kampung Bukit Tinggi, Bentong, Pahang during the weekends, which is the second such incident this year. The horrific flash floods have led to several shops and houses being submerged and caused rapid muddy water flowing from uphill, damaging homes and vehicles in its path down the hill.

2. From the state of Pahang, we will move to Melaka where the body of two-year-old Muhammad Danish Mohd Faizal was found after he was suspected of falling into a drain during heavy rain. Danish was believed to have fallen into the drain when he was playing with his four-year-old brother when both of them were accompanying their mother to her nasi kerabu food stall.

Another PN state, another deficit state budget tabledKedah Menteri Besar Sanusi Nor on Sunday tabled the RM1.241 bil 2024 state budget with a projected deficit of RM104.1 mil. For the uninformed, Kedah is one of the states, apart from Johor, Terengganu and Kelantan that start their week on Sunday and not Monday.

During the tabling of the state budget, Sanusi also announced that Kedah will impose a 15% royalty rate for the mining of its rare earth elements (REE) deposits, effective January 2024. Sanusi also expressed its gratitude to Putrajaya for granting the REE exploration permission, the second state after Perak. Sanusi projected that Kedah will be able to extract 250,000 tonnes of REE in the next ten years, about 20% of its estimated REE reserves.

Shorts

1. Sabah State Government tabled an RM5.701 bil budget with a surplus of RM35.87 mil — The state is projected to generate RM5.737 bil in revenue, about 41% of it comes from non-tax revenue which also includes petroleum royalties. Sabah State Finance Minister concur that the state’s revenue is still heavily dependent on petroleum crude oil (CO) and crude palm oil (CPO), despite the global uncertainties on the price of CO and CPO.

2. One-year visa-free to China for Malaysians — Malaysia is among the six countries, including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain that will undergo a unilateral visa-free policy from the Chinese government, starting from Dec 1, 2023, until Nov 30, 2024. During this trial period, ordinary passport holders from these six countries may enter China visa-free for business, tourism, visiting relatives and friends and transit for no more than 15 days. In return, the government will grant a 30-day visa-free entry for citizens of China and including India from Dec 1 as part of the celebration of the 50-year strategic partnership between Malaysia and China next year.

3. The Thailand Government thanked Malaysia, apart from Egypt, Iran, Israel, Qatar and the International Committee of the Red Cross, for their involvement in the release of 10 Thai nationals who were abducted by Hamas fighters during the early days of the current Hamas-Israeli war. Hopefully, this matter will sweeten the discussions between both PM Anwar Ibrahim and Thailand PM Srettha Thavision when both leaders are slated to meet today in Thailand to accelerate the talks regarding the border development between both countries.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

Israel x Hamas: 4-day truce beginsThe 4-day truce has begun since Friday, mediated by Qatar, and has seen hostages on both sides being released in stages. Until Saturday, the hostage exchange saw Hamas releasing 41 hostages in return out of the 240 captured during their assault on Oct 7 for 78 Palestinian prisoners. On top of the 13 Israelis, A group of 10 Thai citizens and 1 Filipino were released under a separate deal, in which Malaysia played a part, as shared above. A third phase of the exchange was expected to take place yesterday. Israel said the truce could be extended if Hamas continues releasing hostages of at least 10 per day. What happens then after all hostages have been released? 

It seems that the truce was not extended to the West Bank as Israeli forces killed 8 Palestinians, including a child, during early Sunday. This brings the total number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank to 239 since Oct 7. 

Amazon faces a major strike during one of the busiest shopping periods of the yearThousands of Amazon workers walked out on strike across more than 30 countries in Europe on Friday to protest against the e-commerce giant’s working practices. Quite a strategic timing for this strike as the past weekend coincided with the Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday sales. Despite the strikes, Amazon said all is well and they were minimally impacted and assured customers that deliveries would be reliable and timely. Typical corporate response. Amazon remained the top shopping app in Europe, with more than 146 mil active users, despite the rapid growth of Chinese rivals, Shein and Temu, in Europe, with 64 mil and 51 mil active users each, respectively. 

Video call gone wrong leading to lawsuitA senior Nvidia staff member Mohammad Moniruzzaman accidentally exposed during a video call that he stole technology from his old employer Valeo. Whilst he was giving an online presentation to his former employer, he minimised his presentation slides while his screen was still being shared, exposing files that showed the source code behind Valeo’s parking and driving assistance software — an area which Nvidia is working on. Both companies were working on a joint project, which led to the fateful Teams meeting.

Moniruzzaman was convicted by German authorities and admitted to intellectual property theft. Following the conviction, Valeo launched a suit against Nvidia, claiming that the tech giant had saved “hundreds of millions of dollars in development costs and generated profits that it did not properly earn”.

South Korean woman sentenced to life over murder of stranger “out of curiosity”23-year-old Jung Yoo-jung is a true crime fan, obsessed with crime shows and novels and scored highly on psychopath test, according to the police. She confessed that she got hooked on the idea of committing a murder through crime shows and TV programmes. She satiated her curiosity by connecting with a stranger via an app. In this case, an unfortunate English-language teacher fell victim and was stabbed to death at her own home in May.

We won’t go into the details of the gruesome murder - you can read here how it took place and how she got caught. The court handed down a life sentence, though prosecutors sought the death penalty. South Korea has not carried out an execution since 1997. Learn: Psychopath vs Sociopath: What’s the difference?

Reasons for dedollarizationThe US dollar has been the world’s reserve currency since World War II, with nearly 60% of international reserves held in dollar-denominated assets and nearly 90% of foreign exchange transactions. Change is the only constant in life — no matter the dominance of the great USD, calls for dedollarization have been getting louder and louder in recent years. Summary of the reasons here:

• US monetary policy holds too much influence over the rest of the world.

• The strong USD gets too expensive for emerging nations to import and repay their USD debt.

• Global trade and oil demand are diversifying, reducing the need for petrodollar.

5. FOR YOUR EYES 📺

1. The valuation and multiples of publicly listed e-commerce companies. If you run an e-commerce company, you can use these peer comparables to gauge your valuation - of course, you won’t be able to fetch such high multiples, so please don’t be delusional and discount your multiples.

2. Coldplay officially shares a recap of their time in Malaysia and their Bukit Jalil concert.

3. Who created the bubble tea?