RM10, A Mobile Phone, A Tip From Dr Nazri Khan - Hello Wall Street

That’s the message that Datuk Dr Nazri Khan wants to send across, particularly the Malay investment community whom, he says, lack access and the basic know-how to profit from investing in the stock market.

The numbers do paint a dismal picture; out of the 100,000 active investors on Bursa Malaysia, he says only four percent are Malays.

“I think it could be attributed to the culture, and misconception because they believe that the stock market is not Syariah compliant and it is a form of gambling.”

“Sometimes they believe that the stock market is for rich people - which is wrong!” says the senior vice-president atPhillip Capital Management Malaysia.

Since 2015, the avid investor came up with training programs to educate average Malaysians in stock investing.

He agrees that for the uninitiated, the idea of dipping one’s toes into the stock market can feel risky – which it can be without the right strategies, but emphasises that a lack of education and a negative perception towards investing is stripping Malaysians the opportunity to make money.

“What I want to tell the makcik and pakcik is that they can invest in stocks all over the world, with a little as RM10 and a mobile phone.”

“Out of 100,000 stocks in the world, 70 percent are Syariah compliant. We want to provide a platform to do that.” says Nazri during a rehearsal break for his new investing show, Menang Saham with DDNK, soon to be featured on Astro AWANI.

“My job is to give them inspiration, motivation and education, to ensure that they have all these right modules and processes to go through it,” says Nazri. “But I give them an opportunity to start with simple steps.”

Nazri tends to focus on US exchanges – NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange – where most of the ‘monster stocks’ are listed on.

“These are the stocks that double and triple (it’s value) within a year.”

“Amazon went up 680 times in 20 years, from USD3 to USD2000. Microsoft went up 400 times from 20 cents to USD110.”

“There are the so-called Monster Stocks, or in America, the call it the 100-baggers. You can’t find these stocks on Bursa Malaysia yet. Of course I hope with time, we can have more entrepreneurs to produce these local ‘Monster Stocks,” says the licensed fund manager.

“We do have some great consumer and tourism stocks like Top Glove, Padini Holdings, Hartalega, AEON and AirAsia but they are unlikely to double or triple in (value) within a year.”

“Bursa is known as a defensive stock market. We are known for high dividend paying stocks. So, it’s a different game altogether. But if you are young, if you are aggressive, you want to do day-trading, my suggestion is to go to where the gravity is, which is Wall Street - Dow Jones, S&P 500 and of course, the super NASDAQ stocks,” says Nazri.

As the brief interview comes to a close, Nazri expresses hope that his programmes and upcoming talk show can encourage Malaysian to take up an investing attitude.

His long term goal? To set up Malaysia’s first Syariah hedge fund. Watch the full interview with Nazri below: