☕️ Shuttlers take Malaysia few steps closer to its first Olympics gold

1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

Despite the lucrative RM1 mil incentive offered by Malaysia’s Youth and Sports Ministry for gold medallists at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Hong Kong took the top spot by offering its athletes up to RM3.5 mil for bringing a gold medal home. Malaysia ranked 4th in terms of lucrativeness for a gold medal, behind Israel and Serbia. However, Malaysia’s first Olympic gold medallist will get to take home an additional RM7 mil in cash and kind from local sponsors, if the winner is a badminton player. If not, an RM6mil prize awaits.

TikTok Shop has become the third-largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, nearly quadrupling its annual gross merchandise value (GMV) to USD16.3 bil in 2023, according to a report by Momentum Works. Shopee remains the largest with USD55.1 bil in GMV, holding 48% of the market share, while Lazada's GMV for the year was USD18.8 bil.

The Park fire, the largest in the Western US currently, has burned about 390,000 acres (1 acre is equivalent to 15.51 tennis courts) since it started on July 24 near Chico, California, from a burning car pushed into a ravine. A suspect was charged with felony arson. Over 5,500 firefighters are battling the blaze, which was 18% contained as of Wednesday. The fire has destroyed around 360 structures, and thousands of people are under evacuation orders. It is the fifth-largest in California’s history.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

UMNO is not playing nice anymore
UMNO secretary-general Asyraf Wajdi stated that its Supreme Council has decided to initiate legal action, seeking damages and compensation of RM100 mil against its elected representatives who quit the party. The elected rep that he is referring to is Rembia assemblyman Muhamad Jailani Khamis who joined PAS after his UMNO membership was suspended. Asyraf Wajdi added that the party’s course of action is consistent with the agreement signed by all UMNO and BN elected reps where they need to pay RM100 mil to the party if they breach the agreement, which includes becoming a katak and lompat to other parties.

All eyes are on the southern border

• KGV International Property Consultants Sdn Bhd executive director Samuel Tan said that the designation of Forest City’s Pulau Satu as a duty-free island may make the audacious idea of the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ) a realistic one as it may be the key policy that will actually attract firms to the area. Tan added that another missing piece of the JS-SEZ is the realignment of the proposed Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail (KL-SG HSR) project to Forest City, if realised, can turn the current ghost town of Forest City into a major transportation hub.

• Australia-based AirTrunk has turned on the lights at its flagship AirTrunk JHB1 (JHB1) hyperscale data centre in Johor Bahru. The 150 megawatts (MW) JHB1 data centre, spanning across 10.3 hectares, features artificial intelligence (AI)-ready design that reduces energy consumption by up to 23%.

• After announcing the mandatory enforcement of the vehicle entry permit (VEP) by October 1, Transport Ministry Anthony Lokes said that his ministry has received more than 58,700 applications for the past two months, more than what his ministry has obtained for the past two years. However, about 40% of the applications were incomplete. The Singaporean Government has been enforcing VEP for Malaysian-registered vehicles for quite some time. Now, let them taste have a taste of their own medicine.

Malaysians in Paris
Jubilee for the Malaysian athletes in the Paris Olympics as we inch closer to the Gold Medal that we have been craving for so long. Among the top candidates to secure the country’s first gold are:

• Lee Zii Jia — Zii Jia upsets the local hero Toma Junior in straight sets 21-13, 24-22 to face world No.3 Anders Antonsen in the quarter-finals of the badminton men singles today. Watch highlights here.

• Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah — The ladies duo made history after they became Malaysia’s first women’s doubles pair to reach the semi-finals. It only took them 39 minutes to outclass Kim So-young-Kong Hee-yong of South Korea. However, their biggest hurdle awaits in the next stage as they need to beat world No. 1 Chen Qingchen-Jia Yifan of China to at least secure a medal for Malaysia. Watch highlights here.

• Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik - Another Malaysian pair in the badminton sport, Aaron and Soh also advanced to the men’s doubles semi-finals after beating India's Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty in a tight match ending 13-21, 21-14, 21-16. Watch highlights here.

This is the proper time to say — MALAYSIA BOLEH!

Shorts

1. Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development (KPWKM) is set to roll out its e-filing system for sexual harassment victims to alert the Tribunal for Anti-Sexual Harassment (TAGS) starting next year. KPWKM Deputy Minister Dr Noraini Ahmad said that the system will provide support to sexual harassment victims to make complaints to TAGS easier online. According to the statistics by the police, the country recorded 1,483 cases in 2021, 1,455 cases in 2022, and 1,621 cases in 2023, related to sexual harassment. About 6.3% of the cases involved male victims.

2. After successfully securing RM100 mil of assets in under a year, now the SC-licensed digital asset fund manager Halogen Capital is aiming for RM1 bil in asset under management (AUM) in the next two years. According to Halogen CEO Liew Ooi, the RM1 bil may seem crazy, but it is just a peanut compared to the size of the total digital asset market capitalisation amounting to RM11.5 tril.

3. Ekuinas Nasional Bhd (Ekuinas) is second-guessing its plan to exit the sportswear retail group Al-Ikhsan Sports Sdn Bhd due to the unfavourable state of the retail environment. Ekuinas CEO Syed Yasir Arafat Syed Abdul Kadir said that Ekuinas may exit its investment in Al-Ikhsan next year, however unsure whether via an initial public offering (IPO), or a trade sale. Ekuinas has a 35% stake in Al-Ikhsan which it purchased for RM68.6 mil in 2016. For FY2022, Al-Ikhsan generated RM41.65 mil PAT, 6x compared to RM6.81 mil PAT earned in FY2021.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

UN Security Council fears all-out war in Middle East
Members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have condemned the assassination of Hamas’s political chief Ismael Haniyeh in Iran and called for increased diplomatic efforts to prevent an all-out war in the Middle East. The UNSC had an emergency meeting on Wednesday following Hamas blaming Israel for Haniyeh’s death, which Israel has not admitted to it. During the meeting, China, Russia and Algeria condemned the assassination whilst the US, UK and France blamed Iranian support for destabilising actors in the region. Haniyeh is instrumental in the ceasefire negotiations with Israel and China’s ambassador to the UN Fu Cong described Haniyeh’s killing as “a blatant attempt to sabotage peace efforts”. A ceasefire in Gaza remains a pipedream. 

9/11 masterminds escape death penalty, struck plea deal
The US has announced plea agreements with 3 men held in Guantanamo Bay for 21 years and accused of plotting the Sep 11, 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The three masterminds will plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence rather than the death penalty. Their trial has been delayed for 12 years largely due to the US use of torture in Guantanamo Bay, owing to the inadmissibility of evidence linked to abuse. One of the three men was subjected to waterboarding 183 times whilst in CIA custody before he was sent to Guantanamo. Guantanamo was formed by former President Bush in 2001 to prosecute people accused of organising the Sep 11 attacks outside the bounds of US criminal law. Learn more about Guantanamo Bay’s dark history here.
Watch: What is waterboarding (warning - graphic) 

Zuck’s great financial quarter
Facebook parent Meta outperformed market expectations for its Q2 revenue and even issued a rosy sales forecast for Q3, indicating that digital ad spending on its social media platforms can cover the cost of its massive AI investments. Some highlights:

• Revenue rose 22% to USD39.1 bil and net profit nearly doubled to USD13.5 bil year-on-year.

• Family daily active people, a metric used by the company to track unique users per day open of any one of its apps (i.e. Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram) rose 7% yoy to an average of 3.27 bil in June. For context — that’s about 40.3% of the global population of 8.1 bil people.

• The company signalled it will continue to spend big on AI infrastructure, anticipating 2024 capital expenditure to be between USD37 bil - USD40 bil. That’s good news for Nvidia. Zuckerberg has shared plans to purchase 350,000 Nvidia GPUs by end-2024.

• Zuckerberg’s previous fascination, metaverse, saw its unit Reality Labs losing USD4.5 bil in the quarter. 

View deck: Meta Earnings Presentation Q2 2024

One thing is for sure — the AI frenzy ain’t over. Nvidia has recorded the biggest daily rally in market value in the history of Wall Street, adding USD330 bil to its market cap on Wednesday, beating out its own record set in February with a USD277 bil single-day gain. Its stock soared nearly 13% as demand for its chips will remain strong after Microsoft announced on Tuesday that its AI-related capital spending in 2024 rose 60% to USD69 bil.

Shorts

1. Crowdstrike getting sued left right
   The cybersecurity firm that caused a global IT outage a few weeks back is getting sued by Delta Airlines as the outages cost Delta an estimated USD350 mil - USD500 mil involving 176,000 refunds and almost 7,000 cancelled flights. Even its own shareholders are suing the company, accusing the company executives of making “false and misleading” statements about its software testing. The company’s share price dropped 32% in the 12 days after the incident, wiping out USD25 bil in market cap. 

2. Apple ad in Thailand faces backlash
   Apple’s recent ad set in Thailand received backlash for portraying the country as backward and shabby. A 10-minute video (watch below) which is part of a series of comedy shorts called “The Underdogs”, showcases Apple features and products through the adventures of four hapless business partners where they head to Thailand to source for business. Thai PM Srettha Thavisin defended the advert saying it could still benefit the country’s “soft power” through culture, food and tourist attractions on a global stage.

3. Chinese swimmer broke own world record at Paris Olympics
   19-year-old Pan Zhanle broke his own 100-metre freestyle world record and took home the gold medal (watch the race here). He set a new record of 46.4 seconds, shaving 0.4 seconds off his previous record set at the World Championships in Doha in February. In a post-race interview, he shared how he experienced what sounded like anti-China sentiment from his peers (US and Australia) at the games (watch the interview here).

5. FOR YOUR EYES 📺

1. Sports unite — North and South Korean table tennis players taking a selfie together

2. Europe’s most valuable countries and their origins

3. The West is shifting its focus away from China to India in search of its next big thing. An interesting analysis of why India wouldn’t be able to replicate China’s success.