Hey, we moved our newsletter from Revue to Beehiiv.

Following revue's recent announcement that they'll be ceasing their services, I've made the decision to move our newsletter to Beehiiv. Future newsletters will be sent from this email source. Nothing changes if you're an active subscriber.

I hope this new design is more sleek and readable. Please let me know if there are any issues.

Get early access to our newsletter and miss nothing from the markets. Join our journey towards financial literacy today.

Our private announcement group will keep you updated with market movers and urgent matters. For only $1/month, you’ll receive the newsletter every Sunday night and notifications on important events, some with detailed thoughts from economist Mr. Sani Hamid.

✅ No commitments.

✅ Cancel anytime.

✅ Zero ads, zero shills.  

Five Questions I Ask Myself Every New Year

I don't usually keep a personal journal for self-reflection, despite knowing how beneficial it could be for my mental health. What I normally do every new year is ask myself these 5 questions.

• Am I healthy physically?

• Am I healthy mentally?

• Did I love myself?

• Did I do things for myself or for the sake of others?

• Did I earn more than I spend?

If I am able to confidently answer these questions without feeling self-doubt, I will give myself a pat on the back and continue doing what I am doing. Otherwise, I'll pause and reflect on what went wrong and change my perspective or approach towards the problem.

Okay, you might be reading this right now and wondering, "Why on earth is a finance newsletter talking about psychological well-being?" Well, that's because I believe that the key to making wise financial decisions is to first be in a proper state of mind.

My Biggest Finance Mistakes of 2022

• Trusting CEOs and Billionaires. I am not going to lie, I used to be a fan of Do Kwon (CEO of Terra). I trusted that man and even went as far as praising him as a god in one of my previous issues. When push came to shove, I refused to sell my LUNA and UST tokens because I believed that Do Kwon could save the project, but I was so very wrong.

• Not Taking Profits. For the first half of 2022, I refused to sell anything because I believed that the markets would turn for the better. The advice to "always take profits" is well known to everyone. When you play the game, however, you'll realize how difficult it is to consistently tell yourself that "I've made enough" and "it's time to take money off the table."

• Allocating too much to One Sector. Yes, you read that right. Despite my diversified crypto portfolio (which my patrons have full view of), I spent the first half of 2022 assigning too much of my monthly income only to crypto and nothing else. Had I diversified my risk and expanded to other assets (Gold, Bursa market, etc), I could have negated most of my losses thus far.

• Locking up too much funds in staking/yield bearing products. If you're a regular Binance user, you should be familiar with the earn feature it provides. In May, I locked up the majority of my crypto funds in staking. When the Luna crashed to zero in less than 3 days, I simply had not enough time to redeem my funds as Binance staking takes ~48 hours to unlock. The result was a total loss on my UST and Luna holdings.

• Chasing High APYs to Beat Inflation. Rising prices has been a recurring theme for many this year. The poor and middle class saw their grocery bills, electricity, and basic necessities double or triple in price. With that, many investors (like me) sought for ridiculously high APYs to fight inflation, but that was a grave mistake.

The one thing in common of all these mistakes I've made is GREED. Investing is tough, yes. But beating human GREED is tougher. Even after countless hours of reading and doing my own research, I still found myself falling for greed. The money I've lost this year is a significant sum, but fortunately, I've only allocated what I can afford to lose (and you should do the same too).

The Weather Forecast for Malaysia's Economy Next Year is... Gloomy.

This may no longer be a surprise for you, but I'll just hit you with some numbers. The global economy is expected to slow from 3.2% in 2022 to 2.7% in 2023, according to the IMF. Major institutions like Goldman Sachs, Blackrock, and Deutsche Bank are all predicting a similar downward trajectory.

Though Malaysia has seen quite an impressive growth this year, expanding by 8.9% y-o-y in the second quarter and 14.2% y-o-y in the third quarter, the growth momentum is expected to slow in 2023 as macro factors weigh in. Based on the trend indicated by the Leading Index (LI), our nation's GDP could ease to 4.2% next year.

In addition, Malaysia is also experiencing sticky inflation. Our most recent figure, released on December 23, came in at 4.0%, similar to the prior month. Worse, core and food inflation have increased, further cementing the fact that the issue of rising prices is not fully resolved despite the steady downtrend seen in the US.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) will use this as the perfect excuse to crank up interest rates in January, which ultimately will stall GDP growth. I wrote a thread about this previously, you may read it here.

Things are Not Looking too Well for Bitcoin Either.

The sentiment for cryptocurrencies right now is heavily biased towards the negative territory. Many short term investors who were here for the quick profits have already left the market, and your parents may have already asked you "how's that crypto thing going" during your Christmas dinner.

In my previous issue, I talked about how Bitcoin has performed through 2022. More liquidity will exit the market as tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Twitter, and Intel are expected to continue laying off employees, even after the massive culling we've seen last year.

The only bright side that I can think of right now is the amount of accumulation by shrimps (<1 BTC). So scrap your hopes and dreams of making 1,000x overnight and start to opt for dollar cost averaging.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This newsletter is based on my own analysis and research. Do not take any of it as financial advice.

*This newsletter was written at 10.30 AM on 1st January 2023 and completed at 3.30 PM the same day. To read our newsletter on the day it is published, subscribe to Patreon membership for as little as $1 a month!