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On 7th Dec 2011, the Singapore government announced that it would impose an Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty (ABSD) to moderate investment demand for private residential property and promote a more stable and sustainable market. This is needed in view of the stubbornly high inflation rate in Singapore amidst the slowing demand from developed markets. For those who don't know, inflation rate in Singapore was mainly contributed by surging property prices. The ABSD was effective 8 Dec 2011. After the  announcement , property-related stocks slumped last week, following by a slump in banking stocks because of an expected slower housing loan growth. The latest measures are a near-term negative for property developers with an anticipated trend in lower average selling prices and transactional volumes, which will hurt profitability. Nevertheless, most large-cap property developers in Singapore are relatively well diversified, not just across sectors (industrial and commercial), but also...

Titled as " ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENTS IN MALAYSIA IN THE THIRD QUARTER OF 2011 ", Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) review some interesting facts on the status of our economy and the market outlook going forward. The announcement was chaired by Central Bank's governor to address the media after the closing of Bursa Malaysia. Growth improved in the third quarter Despite the challenging environment, Malaysian economy registered a higher growth of 5.8% (2Q11: 4.3%), due to stronger domestic demand. The robust  domestic demand was driven by an  expansion in both household and business spending as well as higher public  sector expenditure.  Manufacturing sector  recording a significantly better performance supported by firm regional  demand for resource-based products, coupled with the normalisation in supply chain disruptions arising from the Japan natural disaster. The headline inflation rate , as measured by the change in the Consumer Price...

What is the main risk for Asian economy? None other than Inflation . Across the region, fast-growing countries such as Singapore, Indonesia, India and China are reporting faster than expected price increases in tandem with their economic success. To fight inflation, many countries already carried out their tools of tightening. We have Singapore who fights imported inflation via stronger currency. Meanwhile, other countries are going for the traditional way of hiking interest rate and increasing bank reserve requirement since last year. At first, Bank Negara Malaysia called it as "normalization", but it seems to be "containerization" going forward to contain inflation. Who's fault? There are 2 causes for the problem, which I categorized them into international and national. Among the international contributing factors were: Loose monetary policies practiced by US and Europe, who slashes interest rate to almost zero and carried out large scale of asset purchases...