Numbers Don't Lie

Aside from sounding like Yusli, a sobering moment would be to have a look at the latest quarterly results of all listed companies, just pick from the bunch any listed firms and you can see the positive earnings growth. Be it finance, plantations, services or exports, most companies are registering significant improvement in revenue and margins. In line with being the best dividend yield paying market in Asia, its time for more stickability with foreign funds.

I see a big difference with this bull run and the one in 93-97, the latter has a lot of smoke and mirrors, a lot of hype, a lot of wishy-washy high-falutin dreams and superflous projections, but no hard numbers. The 93-97 period was a pure liquidity driven thing. There were mega-city projects, high-tech enclaves, even city on a river!!?? Currently, the most outrageous project currently is the South Johor thing, and its not that outrageous at all if you think about it.

The country spent 7 long suffering year trying to get rid of the excesses, now we can compete much better, and our ringgit is still a long way from the 2.6 to the USD back in the mid-90s. While we cannot and should not be over-exuberant, we must know how "pretty" we are so that when strangers call us fat and ugly, or bloated, or like now very sexy - we should know who we are and where we stand and not be swayed by sweet nothings.