Relationship between Macroeconomic Variables and Stock Market: Case Study from Malaysia

This study investigate the relationship between macroeconomic variables and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI, the samples are divided into 2 groups such as foreign macroeconomic variables and local macroeconomic variables, foreign macroeconomic variables consist of Gold Bullion LBM price and Dow Jones Index, meanwhile local macroeconomic variables consist of Consumer Price Index, Base Lending Rate, Exchange Rate. This study employs data from Jan 2000 to Dec 2013 which contains a monthly data set of 168 observations. There are 3 methodologies used in this study to investigate the relationship, the first test is Unit Root test which used to test the stationary of each variable, the results indicate that all the variables are stationary in first difference, this is important to use stationary variables because if the variables are not stationary, it might lead to spurious regression. The second methodology is Johansen & Juselius Co-integration test to investigate the long run relationship among these variables, the results show that the foreign macroeconomic variables and local macroeconomic variables have long run relationship with KLCI and significant. Next, this study will investigate the short run relationship between macroeconomic variables and KLCI, the results indicate that Gold, BLR and CPI can granger cause KLCI and significant at 1%, 5% significance level respectively

The Effects of Insider Ownership Capital Structure of Main Board Listed Companies

In this paper, researcher tends to discuss the “internal control protects shareholders from agency problem”. The term of insider ownership refer to the shareholders who manage the company as well. In other words, the managers are also the owner of the company. Hence, the conflict of interest between the shareholders and managers will reduce as the higher on concentration insider ownership. In this study, insider  ownership expressed as the percentage of the firm’s outstanding share held by the insider. Insider ownership can be classified into outstanding share held by directors, director’s family members (e.g., spouse and siblings), board members and employees’ share option scheme committees. Family or insider groups as a significant shareholder is more likely to be interested in control benefit as well as profit and decision making (Teall, 2007). Small firms usually are higher in insider ownership than outsider control. When a firm expands the business through public listing, the ownership will distribute ownership opportunity to the public. In Malaysia, when go to public listing, the 30% shares must hold by bumiputra. If there are non-bumiputra companies, the companies will gather 30% shares from outsiders who are bumiputra to meet the listing requirement

Impact of Movement Control Order on Risk-Adjusted Performance of the Malaysian Real Estate Investment Trusts (M-REITs)

The first Movement Control Order (MCO) implemented by the Malaysian government from 18th March 2020 to 3rd May 2020 was unprecedented. Since Malaysia was only mildly affected by previous epidemics or pandemics unlike the COVID-19, studies of the pandemic impact on the performance of Malaysian firms and M-REITs in specific were limited. To close this gap, this study compares Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio and Jensen Alpha ratio of 18 M-REITs for sub-periods before, during and after the MCO. Paired sample t-test results for all these three risk-adjusted performance measures consistently show that M-REITs significantly performed better during the MCO compared to before the MCO as well as after the MCO compared to before the MCO. The results suggest that the business model and portfolio of real estate managed by M-REITs are resilient against both systematic and unsystematic risk factors, and imply that the intrinsic value of M-REITs is not significantly affected by the market uncertainty caused by movement restriction. The findings also bolster investors’ confidence to include M-REITs as part of their diversified investment portfolio to achieve sustainable return performance in the post-Covid period. To remain resilient and sustainable, the management of M-REITs should diversify the portfolio of properties and real estate they managed since the movement restriction had varying repercussions on different types of real estate. Rooms for further diversification are justified by a larger percentage of M-REITs having positive Treynor ratios after the MCO sub-period if compared to positive Sharpe ratios. A well-diversified portfolio managed by an M-REIT can reduce unsystematic risk, which is part of the total risk measured by standard deviation, eventually moving towards a positive Sharpe ratio

WeeliciousCuisine quick response (QR)

This paper attempts to create a WeeliciousCuisine quick respond (QR) code content which including some guideline video to guide the users on how to use this product and also providing some recipe to teach them how to used and how to made a complete dishes.The target of audience ages are in seventeen to twenty five years old.Besides that, it also aim for the restaurants, shops and bars to provide them a better understanding of how the products have been use as to improve the services of the tourism industry as this application provides the useful information related to the products or ingredients that required by the foreigners, so the users can get the right ingredients in overseas for example, Malaysia.Research conducted by using the descriptive statistics and result shown more than 58% respondents are still not familiar with Quick respond code but more than a half respondents are interested to know more about Quick respond code and requested to improve their content on food and beverage.In conclusion, WeeliciousCuisine Quick Response (QR) is a system that helps user to have a quick look and learn how to cook in short time.The function of this system is to prevent users for choosing the wrong ingredients and also help them to save time and cost in the supermarket

A Study on Impact of Minimum Wage on Sustainability and Competitiveness of the Timber Industry

In recent years, the minimum wage has become an increasingly popular for reducing inequality in many emerging markets. The aim of the minimum wage is to allow low income workers to maintain a decent standard of living without unduly limiting the flexibility of employers to allow Malaysia to remain competitive at the global level.  In setting the minimum wage, the government took into account social and economic considerations: cost of living, productivity, competitiveness and employment. The timber industry in Malaysia is one of long-standing prominence, garnering much attention as one of the economy’s core components of growth. Malaysia is among the world’s largest exporter of tropical logs, plywood, sawn-timber and furniture to international markets. This survey aimed to reveal the impact of minimum wage on sustainability and competitiveness of the timber industry. This paper will emphasize on the comparison between wood and wood based product sector firms and furniture sector firms in the timber industry. The targeted respondents are the owners or the managers who have knowledge on the financial information and the operation details of the company. Overall, SMEs in the furniture sector seem to be more ready towards the implementation of the minimum wage policy in comparison to their counterparts in wood and wood-based products sector. Their operational performance ratings are generally higher for majority of the different performance aspects.   

E-Queue mobile application

Waiting in line is a common experience in daily life, whether for a table at a popular restaurant or for the service at a bank.This experience is not always pleasant for most of people because they always have to wait for a long time to be serviced.The ability to interact with waiting customers is highly desirable because it allows businesses the opportunity to optimize their existing services and offer new services to waiting customers.However, interacting with individuals waiting in a queue has been inefficient and costly because employees must either talk with each waiting customer on an ongoing basis or the business must provide high tech devices that interact with each waiting customer.Agile methodology which will be used to develop this application, it incorporates the SDLC phases starting from the Planning phase up to the Maintenance phase.End of the research, we found that majority of respondents are prefer to use the proposed system compared with current method

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Foreign Ownership, Foreign Directors and the Profitability of Malaysian Listed Companies

AbstractWith an overall panel of 4,176 firm-year observations drawn from a sample of 348 Malaysia listed companies over the period 1999-2010, fixed-effect panel data regression found that percentage of foreign equity ownership, appointments of foreign chairman and foreign chief executive director did not have any significant relationship with firm's return on equity (ROE). However, increase in percentage of foreign directors sitting on the board significantly improved ROE. Besides, only when foreign investors have dominant (above 50%) voting rights, ROE increased. Construction and wholesale trade sectors sub-panels showed the appointments of foreign chairman and foreign chief executive director negatively influenced ROE

Corporate Governance Codes and Intellectual Capital: Evaluating the Performance Impacts among Government-Linked Companies in Malaysia and Singapore – A Panel Data Analysis

The objective of this study was to examine and compare the effects of corporate governance (CG) and intellectual capital (IC) between Malaysia Government-Linked Companies’ (M-GLCs) and Singapore Government-Linked Companies’ (S-GLCs) firm performance (FP). Panel data analysis was employed to analyse the impact of CG’s variables and IC’s variables on FP. FP was measured by Return on Total Assets (ROA), Tobin’s Q and Earnings Per Share (EPS). Data was gathered from the website of Bursa Malaysia and the Stock Exchange of Singapore from 2005 to 2018. The sample size of this research was 60 GLCs which comprised of 34 M-GLCs and 26 S-GLCs. There were a total 840 firm year observations. Results indicated that CGs of S-GLCs have greater impact on FP when compared to M-GLCs while the findings of the IC of M-GLCs have greater impact on FP compared to S-GLCs. This research was helpful in offering further insights of CG practices and IC efficiency to the Government, Board of Directors, policy makers, shareholders and stakeholders