Monday, February 02, 2015

In 1997 we had George Soros, in 2015, we have Tong Kooi Ong?

Mentor, Dr Mahathir and his protégé, Najib, seem to see history repeating itself?
  
If I were Tong Kooi Ong, I would be flattered by the accusation that he, all by himself, was responsible for trying to bring down our Malaysian Ringgit and our economy, and in the process, making billions from it. But on the other hand, I would be worried by the widespread accusations, of being a big traitor of our country, generated after the so-called expose.

TKO is being compared with George Soros, who had been singled out and blamed for our financial problems in 1997 by our then PM, Dr Mahathir.

To think that it is so simple to 'short' our MYR and make billions is rather naive. In theory it can be very simple as in 'Sell High and Buy Low'. It is like 'short-selling' a company's shares in Bursa Saham KL which is strictly prohibited because one cannot sell shares which one does not own. But on a small scale, I believe there are punters who sold shares and made profits (if they guessed right) by buying at a lower price (within the time set to deliver). But the danger is having to chase to buy shares at rising prices if he was wrong in his prediction.

In the first place, can someone sell our MYR in the forex market on a very large scale without flouting the existing rules and attracting attention from other speculators? I can imagine he must have in place, many accounts with currency traders, in order to be able to have any significant impact on the exchange rates.

While people accuse TKO as a traitor for allegedly shorting our MYR with the help of his publishing units, The Edge and The Malaysian Insider in spreading adverse news about Malaysia, TKO had alluded earlier to the fact that he was forced to sell his Phileo Allied Bank. So it was obviously a case of political leaning in the past (for siding with the wrong horse, Anwar Ibrahim), which led to his having to relinquish his then most innovative bank. It was a pioneer in online share trading (nothing to shout about by today's standard) which made it attractive enough for Maybank to acquire. Therefore it is also unsurprising that he is accused of being a traitor now for unrailing Najib's economic policies. Isn't he a convenient scapegoat for our present financial quagmire?
 

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