Are you excited for the long weekend? We know we are but that’s not the only reason Malaysians are celebrating. Yesterday (Thursday, 24th November) was a big day for Malaysia as Dato’ Seri Anwar bin Ibrahim was officially appointed as the country’s 10th Prime Minister. The politician announced that next Monday (28th November) will be a public holiday.
As the newly appointed Prime Minister, Malaysians are eager to see how he will improve the country’s economy among other things. In case you didn’t know, Malaysia’s stock market and currency have not been doing well, even before the hung parliament period. But that all changed basically overnight after Anwar Ibrahim became our Prime Minister.
Malaysia stocks extend gains as trading resumes from midday break. Bursa Malaysia KLCI rises over 3%.
Ringgit also appreciated sharply, now best performing Asian currencies, and government bonds also rose.
Pakatan Harapan's Anwar Ibrahim set to be sworn in as PM. pic.twitter.com/sKcYz5qpqX
— Jason Ng (@ByJasonNg) November 24, 2022
Bursa Malaysia is the stock exchange of Malaysia and it is one of the largest bourses in ASEAN. Shortly after the Palace announced Anwar Ibrahim as Malaysia’s next Prime Minister, Bursa Malaysia sky-rocketed to a new intra-day high 2 hours after the official announcement. Trading resumed before 2pm yesterday and according to The Vocket, stock markets increased by 3% making this the highest since August 2021.
This increase was in line with Anwar decision for Monday to be a public holiday. The new Prime Minister initially planned it to be on Friday (25th November) but decided to move it to Monday to allow Bursa Malaysia’s upward trend to continue. It was also reported that at 5pm yesterday the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) jumped 58.38 points to 1,501.88 at the end of the day.
The overall market was said to be positive with 725 gainers compared with 206 decliners, according to The Star. Not only that, the Malaysian Ringgit was reported to be strengthening against the USD from RM4.53 to RM4.50 as soon as Anwar Ibrahim was appointed as the 10th Prime Minister.
After a week of the hung parliament crisis, Bursa Malaysia can finally take a breather for the time being before continuing to tackle any ongoing issues. In other news, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced that he will not be accepting salary as the Prime Minister to instill people’s confidence in the government, ministers, and party leadership but did not specify just how long he will forgo the salary.
Sources: TheVocket, TheStar (1)(2), FMT, MalaysiaNow, TheEdgeMarket (1)(2), Twitter, NST
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