Estimated reading time: 18 minutes

Most Malaysian investors probably have more money invested in Malaysia than they realise.

You might look at your stock portfolio and think: RM20,000 in Maybank, RM10,000 in Sunway, a little 99 Speedmart, some Tenaga… maybe 60% Malaysia overall.

But your Bursa portfolio is only part of the picture.

Your salary depends largely on the Malaysian economy. Your savings and fixed deposits are probably denominated in Ringgit. If you own a home, that is another major Malaysian asset.

Now, add your Malaysian stocks on top. 

Suddenly, a very large part of your financial life depends on the same country, economy and currency.

That concentration may feel perfectly comfortable when Malaysia is doing well. But what if things aren’t going well in Malaysia?

So does your next Ringgit really need to make the same Malaysian bet again?

In this guide, I’ll explain why home bias matters, what Malaysian investors can access overseas, why I personally pay particular attention to the US market, and how beginners can approach global investing with Moomoo without immediately trying to become expert stock pickers.

Why Home Bias Can Be a Problem

We tend to invest in what we know. For Malaysians, that usually means Malaysian stocks, Malaysian property, Ringgit savings, and local fixed deposits. Economists call this home bias, the tendency to keep more of our wealth in our home country simply because it feels familiar.

And honestly, that instinct makes sense.

Buying a company listed thousands of kilometres away, trading in another currency and operating while we are asleep naturally feels riskier.

But familiarity and diversification aren’t the same thing.

Let’s take the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI as an example. It tracks 30 of the largest and most actively traded companies on Bursa Malaysia, and for most people, it is the closest shorthand for how “the Malaysian market” is doing.

Over the past 10 years, though, the KLCI’s annualised price return was only around 0.4%.

That does not mean investors made just 0.4% a year in total. Malaysian blue-chip stocks tend to pay dividends, and those dividends make up an important part of the return.

But if we look purely at the index level itself, there really was not much capital growth over the decade.

And once you look inside the KLCI, you can see why the market behaves the way it does. More than 40% of the index is made up of financial stocks, mainly the big banks. Add heavyweight names like Tenaga, and a large part of the KLCI’s performance still depends on a relatively small group of sectors.

So even though the index contains 30 companies, the exposure is not as evenly spread out as the number might suggest.

That helps explain why the KLCI is set to expand from 30 to 50 constituents from December 2026, its first major change to the number of constituents since 2009. A broader index should give investors exposure to a wider mix of companies and sectors.

But for Malaysian investors, the bigger question is still the same.

If your salary, savings, property and existing investments are already tied to Malaysia, how much extra diversification are you really getting by putting your next Ringgit into another Malaysian asset?

Where Can Malaysians Invest Outside Bursa?

If you want to reduce your exposure to a single country, then at least part of your portfolio has to go beyond Malaysia.

The good news is that this is much easier today. Through apps like Moomoo, Malaysian investors can access multiple markets from one platform, including the US, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and Singapore.

That opens up a much wider pool of companies, sectors and currencies to invest in, instead of limiting your choices to Bursa alone.

You definitely don’t need to research every market at once.

To keep things simple, I’d start with the one that has the biggest influence on global markets: the United States.

It’s where you’ll find companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, those businesses whose products and services many of us already use every day.

More importantly, the US market has a long track record of producing some of the world’s biggest growth companies.

So if you’re deciding where to look beyond Bursa, this is a good place to start. Here’s why.

Why The US Is Worth Considering?

1. You can invest in industries Bursa doesn’t offer at the same scale

Let’s take a look at Malaysia’s Heat Map, basically a birds eye view of the entire Bursa Malaysia.

You’ll quickly notice that Malaysia has some genuinely strong listed businesses, especially in sectors like banking, plantations, utilities and property.

But there are also major industries where Bursa simply doesn’t have the same depth or variety.

Malaysia plays an important role in the global chip supply chain, especially in assembly, testing and packaging (ATP). In fact, Malaysia handles roughly 13% of global chip testing and packaging.

The issue is that ATP generally sits further down the value chain, where margins are lower than in areas like chip design and advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

So if you want exposure to the higher-value parts of the semiconductor ecosystem, you’ll probably need to look beyond Malaysia.

For example, NVIDIA (from the US) designs the chip; ASML (from the Netherlands) makes some of the crazy expensive machines needed to produce the most advanced chips; and then, TSMC (from Taiwan) manufactures it. 

The same idea applies to other industries too, including hyperscale cloud computing, advanced AI platforms, biotechnology and global healthcare.

These are areas where Bursa simply doesn’t offer the same range of listed companies. Investing internationally gives you access to a much wider set of businesses, technologies and growth themes that would otherwise be difficult to own from Malaysia alone.

2. Overseas investing also diversifies your currency exposure

When you buy a US stock, you’re really exposed to two things at once.

First, the company itself,  whether the business performs well.

Second, the US dollar, whether it becomes stronger or weaker against the Ringgit over time.

For Malaysian investors, that second part matters because the US dollar plays a major role in the global financial system, which makes it an important source of currency diversification for a portfolio that is otherwise heavily tied to MYR.

Even today, the US dollar remains the world’s dominant reserve currency. Around 57% of global foreign-exchange reserves are held in US dollars, while the euro accounts for roughly 20%.

That gap shows just how central the US dollar still is to the global financial system.

Even the dollar’s share has been coming down over time, but it is still comfortably sitting at number one, and potentially for the foreseeable future as well. 

And historically, during periods of major global stress, think financial crises or the pandemic, investors have often moved money into US dollar assets as a safe haven.

For Malaysian investors, the practical takeaway is simple: Malaysian and US assets can still fall at the same time. But holding US assets gives you exposure to another major currency instead of having your entire financial life tied to the Ringgit.

3. The US market has historically delivered strong long-term growth

The US market has a strong long-term track record. Over roughly seven decades, the S&P 500 has returned around 10.5% annually.

And the past decade was far from smooth. Investors went through COVID-19, rapid interest rate hikes, the 2022 market sell-off, geopolitical conflicts and major trade shocks.

Despite all of that, the US market still delivered strong long-term growth over the period.

By August 2026, the S&P 500 had climbed back to record-high territory. Over the previous 10 years, its annualised price return was roughly 13.5%.

One reason is what actually sits inside the US market. It has much heavier exposure to sectors such as technology, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and global healthcare. Those industries that have been major growth drivers over the past decade.

To put that into perspective, US$10,000 invested in the S&P 500 around July 2016 would have grown to roughly US$35,000 by July 2026, before dividends.

The KLCI has a different market structure. It has more exposure to mature sectors such as banking, utilities and plantations, where companies often return a larger share of profits to investors through dividends.

So over the same period, Malaysian investors received more of their returns as income, while US investors benefited more from capital growth.

As we mentioned earlier, the KLCI’s price return was much flatter, and a bigger part of investors’ returns came from dividends.

The KLCI’s average dividend yield was around 4.5%, compared with roughly 1.4% for the S&P 500.

A simple way to think about it is this: Malaysian investors received more of their returns as cash along the way, while US investors benefited more from rising share prices.

For Malaysians investing in US stocks, there is one extra thing to keep in mind. US dividends are generally subject to a 30% withholding tax. So if the dividend yield is 1.4%, the amount that actually reaches you is closer to 1%.

Even with that tax, the S&P 500 still delivered a much stronger overall return over the period.

Your EPF Already Invests Overseas

Interestingly, you may already have overseas exposure even if you have never bought a foreign stock yourself.

Every month, part of your salary goes into EPF, and EPF invests that money across both Malaysian and international markets.

By the end of 2025, around 38.3% of EPF’s RM1.4 trillion portfolio was invested outside Malaysia. Those overseas investments contributed more than 50% of EPF’s total investment income for the year.

So in a way, part of your retirement savings is already doing exactly what we have been talking about: spreading exposure beyond Malaysia.

And that is really the point of diversifying across countries. If too much of your wealth is tied to one market, you are taking on more country-specific risk without necessarily getting a better return for it.

If you are curious where that institutional money is actually going, one Moomoo feature I find useful is the Institutional Tracker.

Step to Use Moomoo’s Institutional Tracker:

You can search for an institution like EPF and look at its reported US holdings, including the sectors it is exposed to, the companies it owns, and where it has been adding or reducing positions.

I would not use this to blindly copy EPF. Their portfolio size, investment horizon and mandate are very different from ours. But it can be a useful starting point for research and help you spot sectors or companies that may be worth digging into further.

And EPF is just one example. You can also look at global institutions like Vanguard or Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. So if you are completely new to US stocks, watching where large institutions are allocating capital can at least give you clues on which sectors and companies are worth researching next.

Understanding Big Money Movements With Moomoo AI

Instead of going straight to Google and asking, “What US stock should I buy?”, I find it more useful to ask why large institutions are moving money in the first place.

This is where Moomoo AI can help organise the research.

For example, I might ask:

• Why is BlackRock investing heavily in the energy and power infrastructure industry?
• What kind of overseas exposure are they getting that is harder to access in Malaysia?
• Which companies are benefiting from that trend?

Moomoo AI can then help summarise the information available on the platform and connect the dots between sectors, companies and institutional holdings.

For me, that makes it a useful starting point for research to decide what is worth looking into further.

Step to Use Moomoo’s AI:

New to US Stocks? Start With ETFs

Once you start looking at US stocks, the number of choices can get overwhelming very quickly.

There are thousands of listed companies, and researching them one by one takes time.

For beginners who simply want broad market exposure, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) can make things much easier.

An S&P 500 ETF, for example, gives you exposure to around 500 large US companies in a single investment. A total market ETF can spread your money across thousands of US companies.

That way, your portfolio is less dependent on whether one individual company does well or badly.

Three things I look at when comparing ETFs

1. Expense ratio

This is the annual fee charged by the fund. A fee of 0.03% may appear tiny, but costs accumulate over long investing periods.

2. Holdings and sector exposure

Always check what an ETF actually owns.

QQQ, for example, follows 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on Nasdaq and has significant technology exposure.

VTI tracks a much broader section of the US stock market, although technology can still represent a large portion of the fund.

An ETF can contain hundreds of companies while remaining heavily exposed to one sector.

3. Fund size and liquidity

Larger, actively traded ETFs tend to have plenty of buyers and sellers.

VOO, for example, has around a trillion US dollars in assets.

SPUS, a Shariah-compliant ETF that invests in US companies passing its Shariah screening methodology, has assets closer to US$3 billion.

Trading activity also affects the bid-ask spread, which is the difference between the price buyers are willing to pay and the price sellers are asking for.

Moomoo’s ETF comparison tool is useful at this stage.

Step to Use Moomoo’s comparison tool:

For someone choosing between a broad-market ETF, a technology-focused ETF, or a Shariah-compliant ETF, having the key details side by side makes the comparison much easier.

You can quickly see how they differ in fees, holdings, sector exposure and fund size, instead of opening multiple websites and trying to piece everything together yourself.

How To Research US Stocks From Malaysia

Once you start investing in the US, you’ll quickly discover another problem.

There is an enormous amount of information. You have company earnings, analyst reports, Federal Reserve decisions, tariffs, economic data, industry news, Reddit, X, YouTube and financial media all competing for your attention.

The US market also trades while most Malaysians are asleep. You can wake up in the morning and discover that a stock has moved 10% overnight.

Let’s say you’re researching NVIDIA and it suddenly falls 13%.

The first questions I’d ask are:

• Was there company-specific news?
• Did something happen to the semiconductor sector?
• Was there another export restriction?
• Did a competitor announce something important?
• Or did the entire market sell off?

This is another area where Moomoo fits naturally into my workflow.

Its 24/7 global news feed gives me one place to check recent developments around the company and broader market.

Step to Use Moomoo’s news feed tool:

Then I’ll look at investor discussions to see what other issues people are focusing on.

Moomoo’s community has more than 30 million users globally, so popular stocks usually have ongoing discussions around them.

I see those discussions as another source of research ideas.

Someone might highlight margins, valuation, competition or an upcoming regulatory change that I hadn’t considered yet.

I can then verify the issue myself using company filings and other primary sources.

Step to Use Moomoo’s community tool:

Moomoo also has its “In One Chart” content, which takes a market theme and explains it through a chart together with related companies.

Again, I use this for idea generation.

It can give you a starting point when you’re trying to figure out what to research next.

Step to Use Moomoo’s In One Chart tool:

Consider Recurring Investments If Timing Keeps Stopping You

Eventually, every investor runs into the same question:

“When should I buy?”

You can spend weeks researching a stock or ETF and still hesitate because you are worried the price might drop the next day.

For long-term investors, one way to deal with that is dollar-cost averaging.

The idea is simple: invest a fixed amount at regular intervals instead of trying to find the perfect entry price every time.

Moomoo offers this through its Recurring Investment Plan, or RSP.

You choose the investment, the amount, and how often you want to invest, then the plan follows that schedule automatically.

So if you have already decided that you want long-term exposure to a broad US ETF, you could simply set up a monthly recurring investment and keep going.

Step to Use Moomoo’s RSP tool:

The real benefit here is behavioural. You make the decision once, then follow the plan instead of asking yourself every month whether now is the “right” time to buy.

Final Thoughts

A Malaysian investor’s portfolio extends far beyond the stocks visible inside a brokerage account.

Your income, savings, property, EPF and local investments all form part of your overall financial exposure.

Once you look at your wealth from that perspective, investing overseas starts to make more sense as a diversification tool.

And platforms such as Moomoo make the process easier by bringing several parts of that journey into one place. The platform is also licensed by the Securities Commission Malaysia, which is an important consideration when choosing a broker locally.

If you’re interested in opening a Moomoo account, you can use my code ZIET11 for the additional promotional rewards available under the campaign.

At the time of publication, new users can receive rewards worth up to RM1,600, including Apple share rewards and cash coupons. Promotions and eligibility requirements can change, so check the latest campaign terms through my link before signing up.

Before deciding where to invest, look at the exposure you already have. Then ask yourself a simple question: Where does your next Ringgit add something new to your portfolio?

Anyways, if you prefer a video version of this article, I have made a video covering the exact same thing – do check it out here! Thanks for reading!

*T&Cs apply. All views expressed in this blog are the independent opinions of Ziet, which are not shared by Moomoo Securities Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (“Moomoo MY”). No content shall be considered financial advice or recommendation. Moomoo MY links are included in this post, through which referrals are made and I may receive certain commissions. Please contact Moomoo MY for more information.
 

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The post Where Your Next Ringgit Should Go? appeared first on Ziet Invests.

Estimated reading time: 21 minutes

Here’s how stock research used to look for me.

One tab for the financials. One for the news. One for a YouTube guru shouting that it’s going up. And one more for a Reddit thread insisting the whole thing is a bubble.

Two hours later: thirty tabs, a headache, no clearer than when I started, and I’d buy it anyway, based mostly on vibes.

So this time I tried something different. One stock, researched end to end, inside a single app. No Google. No news sites. No YouTube. No Reddit. Just Moomoo. If I had to use anything else to look something up, the challenge was over.

Six levels, in the order real research actually happens: find the opportunity, understand the business, check the numbers, find out what everyone else thinks, compare it against competitors, then place the trade properly. Each level gets a green tick or it doesn’t.

One question runs through all six: can one app really do the job that used to take thirty tabs?

Level 1: How To Find Stock Opportunities

Before you can research a stock, you have to find one.

Most people find theirs in a WhatsApp group. Somebody’s uncle says a counter is going to fly, so they buy it. That’s the entire process.

And yes, this point gets made constantly, but it keeps happening. The Securities Commission surveyed around 1,300 Malaysian investors, and 55% of respondents said they had been given advice that turned out to be fraudulent. A third of all respondents lost money. The most common entry point was a friend or family member, or a seminar. 

Not every hot tip is a scam. But look at how the decision gets made: follow whoever told you, skip the homework entirely.

So how do you find a stock without someone handing you one? Inside Moomoo, there are two routes.

First, Heat List. 

Here’s how you can explore the Heat List yourself on Moomoo app: 

It shows what’s actually moving today. But it only tells you which stock is getting the most attention right now, and nothing about whether the business is any good. 

For me, the screener is the better tool, because you set the rules and the app filter for you. 

I prefer profitable companies that are still growing, so my filters are fairly strict:

Step to Use Moomoo’s Screener:

These are the companies that survived from my filter: Nvidia, TSMC, SK Hynix.

Nvidia is the one worth digging into, so that’s the stock for the rest of this exercise.

Level 1: green tick. Filtered stocks against my own rules, without leaving the app.

Level 2: Understanding the Business Through Research

Having a ticker is not the same as understanding a business.

Normally this is where I’d Google “what does this company actually do?”. Instead, I asked Moomoo AI inside the app: what does Nvidia do, and what’s moving the stock right now? A few seconds, and I had the answer.

Step to Use Moomoo’s AI: 

Then I did something more interesting. I asked one hard question three times, to test the three modes: Flash answers fast, Reason analyses in depth, and Expert takes on complex, multi-step work.

The question:

Hyperscalers like Amazon, Google, and Meta are Nvidia’s biggest customers, but they are all building their own custom AI silicon. Explain how this specifically threatens Nvidia’s 74% gross margins, not just their revenue.

Flash came back almost instantly, and the answer was solid. It named the competing chips, quoted an analyst, explaining the mechanics of the squeeze. But something stands out: it only argues one way. Every line is about why this is a threat.

Reason went further. It showed its thinking first, then dug into Nvidia’s own numbers, how much revenue depends on a handful of customers, and how much Nvidia is spending to stay ahead. Crucially, it did something Flash didn’t: it explained what Nvidia is doing to fight back, and put a figure on how bad the damage could realistically get.

Expert took the longest. It wrote itself a research plan, ran a series of searches, then handed off to a second agent to build a chart.

And it found a threat the other two missed entirely.

Flash and Reason both landed on the same mechanism: big customers gain bargaining power, so Nvidia has to cut prices. Fair enough. But Expert also checked the cost side, and found that the memory chips going into these products have risen 60% to 70% in a year. 

Which means the margin is being squeezed from both directions at once, selling prices under pressure, manufacturing costs climbing. That’s a completely different mechanism, and only one of the three modes went looking for it. Expert then argued against itself, quoted the analysts who think the whole bear case is overdone, and gave the actual forecast.

Expert wins here for one reason: it was the only mode that went hunting for what it might be getting wrong.

That’s the case for choosing your mode deliberately before you ask. And whichever you pick, the same rule applies, AI is a tool. Even the Expert report is a starting point, you should go and verify it.

Next, how I read the news feed without drowning in it.

Which brings me to the Discover tab and its news section. I used to pay for several subscriptions just to keep up with the market. Inside the app it’s free, organised across the top by Headlines, Latest, and Watchlists.

Step to Read News on Moomoo:

And you might ask: Is news actually a signal, though, or just noise?

Honestly, almost 90% of financial news is noise to make you panic-sell or FOMO-buy. But the remaining 10% tells you about a real change in the business: a CEO shakeup, a major government contract, an earnings report that genuinely beats expectations.

The Watchlist filter is where to start. It won’t tell you which story is signal, but it strips out every company you don’t own, and that kills most of the noise before you read a word.

Here’s how I read two stories at the top of the feed.

CoreWeave. Not Nvidia, but tagged as closely related, think of CoreWeave as a landlord for AI computing power. It buys Nvidia chips, puts them in data centres, and rents them out. It had just reported quarterly results: revenue doubled to USD 2.58 billion, and the stock jumped 16% after hours. 

That last part is the noise. A 16% move tells you nothing about the business. The signal was buried further down: CoreWeave signed a contract for chips it originally bought back in 2020, running all the way to 2029. 

Why does that matter? The loudest worry about the entire AI buildout is that these chips go obsolete in two or three years. If that’s true, companies are burning billions on equipment that becomes scrap before it pays for itself. A 2020 chip still collecting rent in 2029 points the other way. One contract doesn’t settle the argument, nobody honestly knows whether the real answer is three years or seven, but it’s evidence. That’s what makes it signal.

Next, Nvidia itself. It signed an agreement with six of the biggest names in finance to arrange more than USD 500 billion in loans to build AI infrastructure.

Read it carefully: the money is for Nvidia’s customers. Nvidia’s chips are expensive, and plenty of buyers can’t pay cash, not Google or Meta, but the smaller AI companies. They want the chips, so they need to borrow.

The structure is familiar. They borrow to buy the chips, and the chips become security on the loan, the same way a house secures a mortgage. When they miss the payments and the lender takes the hardware.

No money has actually been raised yet,  this is only an agreement. And the whole plan rests on one question: in five or ten years, is a used AI chip still worth good money?

Nvidia’s answer is that customers today are still running chips from 2020. That’s true. But utility value and market value are two different things. A chip can be busy every single day and still rent for a fraction of its original price. Nobody knows that number yet.

Neither story settles anything, and that’s the honest limit of a news feed. But that’s how I read one: ignore anything that’s only about the price, check whether something actually happened or somebody merely said something, and look for whether the stories connect,  because they usually do.

Level 2: green tick. The app can narrow the noise for you. Deciding which signal actually matters is still your job.

Level 3: Conduct Fundamental Analysis On A Company

News and narrative mean nothing if the business doesn’t hold up. This is the level that matters most, and the one where most retail investors quit.

Five questions. Every answer is already on the stock page.

Step to Use Moomoo’s Company Financials: 

1. Is revenue growing?

Yes, steadily, quarter after quarter.

2. Are gross margins stable, or getting squeezed?

Rising. Roughly 74 dollars of gross profit on every 100 dollars of chips sold. For a company shipping physical hardware, that’s exceptional, and margins moving up tell you nobody has yet been able to force Nvidia to cut price.

But look more carefully, because there’s something hiding in these rows. Operating margin: 64%. EBIT margin: 75%, that’s Earnings Before Interest and Tax. Normally EBIT shouldn’t exceed operating profit if all the money is coming from the core business. That gap of roughly 10 percentage points is income from somewhere else.

Dig into the results and you find it: last quarter Nvidia booked almost USD 16 billion of gains on shares it holds in other companies. 

That’s real money, and it’s properly disclosed. It just didn’t come from selling chips.

3. Is the debt manageable?

Next, Solvency. A year ago the long-term debt-to-equity ratio was around 12%. Today it’s about 6%, the debt burden effectively halved. The current ratio sits at 3.44, meaning roughly three and a half times more short-term assets than short-term liabilities.

Comfortable, on both counts.

4. Does it pay dividends, and consistently?

Barely. A yield of 0.02% and a payout ratio of 0.82%. Over 99% of profit stays in the business and gets reinvested.

If you’re buying Nvidia for passive income, you have the wrong stock.

5. Is the PE ratio reasonable, or are you overpaying for hype?

Quick test before the answer: right now, do you think Nvidia is cheap, fairly priced, or expensive?

The PE is 33.32, about 33 dollars paid for every one dollar of annual profit. Sounds expensive. But check the percentile: Nvidia’s PE has been lower than today’s level only about 20% of the time, and you can watch it happening on the chart, that line sliding down all year.

So measured against its own trading history, today sits near the cheap end.

How is that possible while the share price keeps climbing? Over five years the company became roughly 8 times more valuable, and its profit grew 19 times. The price ran fast. The profit ran faster.

One caveat before moving on: those USD 16 billion of investment gains are inside this number too. Strip them out and 33 gets a little more expensive. Nobody hid it, it’s in the release. But if you only read the headline, you’d miss it entirely.

So is it cheap? Against its own past, yes. Against its competitors, that’s Level 5.

Level 3: green tick. Five questions answered in one app.

Level 4: What Everyone Else Thinks

I understand the business now. What I want next is the best argument against it, because if I only listen to fans, I’m not thinking clearly.

Normally that’s a Reddit and Facebook job. Today it’s Moomoo‘s analyst ratings and comments tab, side by side.

The professionals first. Most analysts covering Nvidia rate it a Buy, and the average twelve-month target sits well above today’s price. Worth understanding what a target price is: an analyst’s estimate of where the stock lands in twelve months. They’re paid to hold an opinion, and those targets get revised the moment the next quarter drops. It’s just a temperature check.

Step to Use Moomoo’s Analyst Ratings:

Then the retail crowd. Scrolling the comments: somebody says 180. Somebody says 204. Somebody says 288. Three different numbers, and none of them explains why.

But two posts were worth the scroll.

The first flagged that Michael Burry had reportedly added to a short position while Cathie Wood had been buying. Two of the most-watched investors alive, taking opposite sides of the same stock. If they can’t agree, nobody in the comments section is going to hand me the answer. 

The second was an argument between two users. Read properly, one is saying zoom out, it broke out in April, it’s building a base, he’s buying dips. The other says it’s overbought and he wants a pullback first.

They aren’t actually disagreeing about Nvidia. One is holding for months; the other is trading it today. Most arguments you’ll see online are exactly this: two people on different timeframes talking past each other.

Step to Use Moomoo’s Comments:

That’s what I use this section for. Not to be told what to think, but to find where the disagreement actually sits, and to catch the one argument I hadn’t considered.

Level 4: green tick. Professional and retail views in the same app, and I never opened Reddit once. Just know what you’re reading, most of it is noise, and the useful part is the disagreement. 

Level 5: Stock Comparison

This is the level most people skip, which is exactly why they get it wrong. A number on its own means nothing.

74% gross margin sounds amazing. A PE of 33 sounds pricey. Compared to who?

So put it next to its competitors. On the Nvidia stock page, tap Compare, then add AMD, Intel, and Broadcom.

Step to Use Moomoo’s Comparison Tool:

Start with the PE. Nvidia: 33. AMD: 120. Broadcom: 70. Intel: −162.

Stop there for a second, because −162 is not the cheapest thing on that screen. It means Intel is making a loss. Earnings per share: −60 cents. Once a company loses money, its PE stops meaning anything at all. Never read a negative PE as cheap.

Which leaves three companies actually making money, and Nvidia is the cheapest of them on earnings. The stock most people call the most overhyped in the world is not where most people would guess.

So why is it cheaper? Look at what each one actually earns.

Gross margin, ranked: Nvidia, then AMD, then Broadcom, then Intel. Net margin, what’s left in the company, same order. Return on equity, which shows how much profit is generated for every dollar shareholders put in: same again, with Intel negative because it’s losing money.

For every dollar shareholders put in, Nvidia earns close to six times what AMD does, and you pay less than a third of AMD’s multiple to own it.

Now the tricky part. Change one row and the story flips.

PE measures price against profit. PB, price to book, measures price against what the company actually owns: buildings, cash, equipment. On PE, Nvidia is the cheapest name on the screen. On PB, it’s the most expensive. Opposite answers, same company.

That’s the real point of this level. No single number tells you whether something is cheap. You only find out by comparing.

Level 5: green tick. Three competitors on one screen in about three minutes,the step most people never take.

Level 6: How To Execute A Trade

Screeners, financials, and news feeds are excellent for making an informed decision. But a trading platform is ultimately judged on trade power: can it actually execute your strategy?

This is where the app impressed me most. You’re not limited to buying stocks, there’s a full range, from global equities and ETFs to options, futures, and IPOs, all inside one app.

Having the choices and using them properly is different.

Most people, once they’ve decided, just hit Buy at whatever price the screen shows that second. Two things I do instead.

Set a limit order. Rather than accepting whatever the market offers, I decide my price. If the stock comes down to my number, the order fills automatically. If it doesn’t, I won’t buy it. That single habit stops you chasing and overpaying.

Set a stop loss. The question nobody asks before buying: what do I do after I buy the stocks and it drops? A stop loss answers it in advance. You set a level, and if the price reaches it, the app sends a sell order.

Be precise about what that means, because this trips people up. A stop loss is not a promise that you’ll lose exactly 15%. It triggers an order once your level is hit, and in a sudden decline your fill can be worse than the level you set. What it really does is make the decision for you while you’re still calm.

And the smarter version, the trailing stop. Instead of a fixed floor, it follows the price upward. As the stock rises, your stop rises with it. If the stock turns, the sell order triggers. It lets a winner run while protecting the gains you already have.

Step to Trade and Select Order Type on Moomoo:

Same app, same session: full investigation, then explicit rules for getting in and getting out.

Level 6: green tick, and this is the one it passed most comfortably.

Final Thoughts

Six levels. Six green ticks. Not one other tab opened.

An entire end-to-end stock workflow, start to finish, inside a single app.

But the point is that the process above is one you’ll actually finish. Thirty tabs is how research dies halfway through, you get overwhelmed, you give up, and you end up buying on vibes anyway. Cutting it to one app saves the time and money you’d have lost to a decision you never really made.

Besides, traditional brokers often charge a high minimum brokerage every time you buy or sell, which quietly punishes anyone investing smaller amounts. Moomoo gives new users zero commission on both US and Malaysian stocks for the first 180 days, and a small flat platform fee after that. You shouldn’t have to overpay simply to execute your own strategy. 

If you want to try the same tools, you can sign up for a Moomoo account. They’re currently giving away up to RM1,600 worth of Apple stock plus RM100 cash for new users. Remember to use my special deposit code “ZIET11” to unlock an extra RM 50 worth of Apple stock by depositing a minimum RM1,000 into the account.

Anyways, if you prefer a video version of this article, I have made a video covering the exact same thing – do check it out here! Thanks for reading!

*T&Cs apply. All views expressed in this blog are the independent opinions of Ziet, which are not shared by Moomoo Securities Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (“Moomoo MY”). No content shall be considered financial advice or recommendation. Moomoo MY links are included in this post, through which referrals are made and I may receive certain commissions. Please contact Moomoo MY for more information. 

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The post I Researched a Stock Using Only One App. No Google, No Reddit, No YouTube appeared first on Ziet Invests.

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Every time you need to send money overseas, you check Google for the exchange rate. It looks about right. Then you open your banking app, and the screen says: “Zero Transfer Fees” or maybe just a flat RM10 transfer fee. You hit send, feeling like you got a great deal.

But here is the reality. Study showed that Malaysian businesses and individuals lost an estimated RM3 billion in 2023 alone to a fee that never once showed up on a receipt.

If you are a freelancer getting paid in US dollars, a content creator earning from YouTube, an e-commerce seller receiving overseas payments, or a business owner paying foreign suppliers, chances are you have paid this hidden cost too, whether you realize it or not.

In this guide, we’ll explore where these hidden costs come from and the common challenges faced when dealing with foreign currency. And we will also explain how platforms like Airwallex are helping to solve the issues.

The Hidden Cost Behind Every Transfer

First things first: The exchange rate you see on Google (which is the mid-market rate) is almost never the rate your traditional bank gives you.

When evaluating a foreign currency transaction, look at both components:

1. The visible fee
   This may be a transfer fee, service charge, correspondent bank fee or receiving bank fee.
2. The exchange rate markup
   This is the difference between the market rate and the rate offered to you by the bank or payment provider.

The second cost is often harder to identify because it is not always shown as a separate line item.

Many people overlook this when comparing international transfers. The advertised fee may be low or even zero but the provider can still earn money by giving you a less favourable exchange rate.

For an occasional personal transfer, the difference may feel irritating but manageable. But for a business moving tens or hundreds of thousands of ringgit every month, it can quietly become a serious operating expense. 

Assume a business converts RM100,000 each month and receives a rate that is 2.5% less favourable than the reference market rate. That difference represents approximately RM2,500 per month or RM30,000 per year.

That is money that could otherwise be used for:

• Hiring another employee
• Increasing the advertising budget
• Buying inventory
• Improving the product
• Expanding into a new market

This is why business owners should compare the amount received by the beneficiary instead of the transaction fees.

Your Business May Already Be International

Previously, I used to think foreign exchange costs mainly affected importers, exporters and manufacturers shipping physical products across borders.

I realised how wrong I was when I started running my own media business and began reviewing my own transactions.

Although we were not exporting or importing, we were already dealing with several currencies every month.

A typical Malaysian digital business might:

• Receive payments from US customers in USD
• Pay Meta or Google for advertising
• Subscribe to software such as Canva, Adobe or ChatGPT
• Hire freelancers located overseas
• Purchase services from a regional supplier
• Pay for cloud hosting in another currency
• Collect platform revenue from YouTube, Amazon, Shopify or an international marketplace

You do not need an overseas office to become an international business. The moment your income and expenses involve different currencies, foreign exchange becomes part of your cost structure.a starting point, not a conclusion. The question is how to use them properly.

The Double Currency Conversion Trap

One of the most expensive FX problems I came across is being forced to convert the same money twice.

For example, say a US client pays my Malaysian company USD10,000. The money comes into my traditional Malaysian bank account, and it gets converted into ringgit.

At that point, I thought, okay, that’s done. But a few weeks later, I need to pay for USD denominated software subscriptions and digital advertising. So I have to convert that ringgit back into USD.

That means the same money has gone through two conversions:

• USD to MYR when I receive the payment
• MYR to USD when I pay for my business expenses

And each conversion can carry its own exchange rate spread.

That was when I realised I could be losing money simply because I was moving the same money between currencies twice!

The more efficient approach would be to receive USD, keep it in USD and use that balance for future USD expenses. Conversion would only take place when the business actually needs ringgit.

What Is Airwallex?

So, I have always searched for whether there was a better way for businesses to receive, hold and spend money across different countries.

That search is what led me to Airwallex.

Airwallex is a global payments and financial platform designed for businesses that receive, hold, convert, send and spend money in multiple currencies.

The company was founded in Melbourne in 2015 and has since expanded internationally. Its customers and commercial partners have included globally recognised organisations such as McLaren Racing and Arsenal Football Club.

Airwallex (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. is regulated by Bank Negara Malaysia as:

• A licensed currency exchange and remittance business under Money Services Business Act 2011
• An approved e-money issuer
• A registered merchant acquirer under the Financial Services Act 2013

One thing I also looked into before using Airwallex was how my money is protected. Airwallex is not a bank, so the balance in your account is not covered by PIDM, which protects eligible deposits held with licensed banks in Malaysia.

Instead, Airwallex’s e-money structure requires customer funds to be ring-fenced. In simple terms, the money is kept separate from Airwallex’s own funds and is not treated as the company’s operating money.

So while the protection structure is different from a traditional bank account, there are safeguards in place to keep customer funds segregated.

How Airwallex Global Accounts Work

One of the Airwallex features I personally found most useful is its Global Accounts.

As a Malaysian business, I can get local account details for receiving payments in supported currencies. So if a US client is paying me in USD, instead of asking them to make a conventional international wire transfer to Malaysia, I can give them USD account details.

Now the money can stay in USD inside my Airwallex Wallet.

For example:

1. A customer pays my business USD10,000.
2. The funds are received and held in USD.
3. I use USD3,000 to pay for advertising and software.
4. I convert only the remaining amount that I need in MYR.

Instead of automatically converting the full USD10,000 into ringgit and later buying USD again, this feature helps me to avoid converting the USD3,000 portion unnecessarily.

This gives my company more control over when conversion takes place.

Airwallex Foreign Exchange Pricing

Airwallex’s FX conversions are priced from approximately:

• 0.4% above the interbank rate for selected major currencies
• 0.6% above the interbank rate for other supported currencies

Here is what the FX rate comparison looks like in practice: 

Assuming I’m transferring money to a client in the UK who needs to receive GBP 10,000, here’s how much it would cost me in MYR across different platforms.

So, for the same amount received by the recipient, Airwallex always offers a better FX rate than traditional banks, which costs you less in Ringgit. 

Why International Transfers Can Take Several Days

One thing that surprised me after using Airwallex was how quickly some of my international payments could reach the recipient.

Before this, I was used to international transfers taking time, so I never really questioned what was happening behind the scenes.

Then I started looking into how traditional international bank transfers actually work.

Many conventional international transfers rely on SWIFT, a messaging network used by financial institutions to coordinate cross-border payments.

Depending on the payment route, the transfer may pass through one or more intermediary or correspondent banks before reaching the recipient.

Think of it like taking a flight with several connecting stops.

Every additional stop can mean 

• more processing time
• more potential fees,
• less visibility over where the payment is,
• more chances of delays because of different banking hours and cut-off times.

What Airwallex does differently is that, where available, it uses local payment networks instead of routing every payment through a traditional multi-bank SWIFT chain.

Airwallex says around 94% of its global transfers are routed through local payment rails, and many transfers can arrive on the same working day.

So instead of your payment taking several connecting flights, it’s more like taking a direct flight whenever the local payment network is available.

Of course, it doesn’t mean every Airwallex transfer is instant. The actual timing still depends on the currency, destination, compliance checks, banking holidays and the recipient’s bank.

More Than an International Transfer Platform

As I looked deeper into Airwallex, I found several features that could help businesses manage different parts of their business finances in one place.

Multi-Currency Corporate Cards
You can also issue virtual or physical company cards to employees or departments.

For example:

• A marketing card for Meta and Google advertising
• A software card for SaaS subscriptions
• A travel card for an employee attending an overseas conference
• A procurement card for supplier purchases

You can assign limits and rules to individual cards.

This is more controlled than giving multiple employees access to one shared company card or asking staff to pay personally and submit reimbursement claims.

Expense Management
Airwallex’s expense tools are designed to help businesses collect receipts, submit claims and apply approval workflows.

One feature I found particularly convenient is that employees can upload multiple receipts at once. The system AI automatically extracts the relevant details, so there’s no need to enter everything manually.

For a growing team, this can reduce the time spent:

• Chasing missing receipts
• Is revenue growing?
• Identifying which department made a purchase
• Reviewing employee reimbursement claims
• Manually updating expense spreadsheets

Final Thought

After looking at all of this, I think the biggest lesson for me is that efficiency matters.

When you’re running a business, there are so many small financial processes happening in the background. Receiving money, paying for software, running advertisements, reimbursing employees, managing cards and tracking expenses.

Each one might seem insignificant on its own. 

But as the business grows, the volume grows with it.

That’s where platforms like Airwallex become important.

For me, a good financial setup is one that makes these processes easier to manage, gives me more control over my money and reduces unnecessary steps along the way.

At the end of the day, that efficiency can make a real difference as it grows.

Anyways, if you prefer a video version of this article, I have made a video covering the exact same thing – do check it out here! Thanks for reading!

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The post The Hidden Cost of International Money Transfers: Where Your Money Really Goes (And How Malaysian Businesses Can Stop Losing It) appeared first on Ziet Invests.

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Every investor goes through this at least once. You spend weeks watching a stock, finally pull the trigger, and the very next day it drops 10%. You panic, sell, and then watch it rocket past your original entry price like it was waiting for you to leave. It almost feels personal.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: someone really is shaping the price you see on your screen. Not targeting you specifically, but moving the market in ways most retail investors never account for. These are the big institutions, hedge funds, fund managers, pension funds, they are collectively moving trillions of dollars across global markets every single day. The financial world calls them smart money.

And here’s the interesting part: by law, most of these institutions are required to publicly disclose what they are buying and selling. Which means anyone with a phone can technically see exactly what the world’s biggest investors are doing. For free.

So why are retail investors still losing?

Why Retail Investors Actually Lose

It’s rarely about picking a “bad” stock. The more common culprit is when and why people buy and sell.

The pattern tends to look like this:

1. Buying after the hype has already peaked.

Take Malaysian glove stocks in 2020. By the time most retail investors were buying Top Glove or Hartalega, after it was all over WhatsApp groups and family chats, smart money had already been holding for months. Retail investors weren’t early. They were the exit liquidity.

2. Panic selling on dips. 

The stock drops, anxiety sets in, and shares get sold. Then it recovers without you.

3. Confusing rising prices with a good business. 

Glove stocks climbed for months while the underlying business was quietly becoming a worse long-term bet, as global demand was tied to a pandemic that was eventually going to end.

The real gap isn’t intelligence or luck. It’s information and timing. Institutions plan their moves months in advance, backed by dedicated research teams. Retail investors react in real time, emotionally, and usually too late.

The goal, then, is to stop reacting blindly and start reading what the planners are actually doing.

What Is “Smart Money”?

The term gets thrown around loosely, so it helps to be specific. Smart money generally refers to three groups:

• Institutional investors – pension funds like EPF or KWAP locally, or Berkshire Hathaway in the US
• Hedge funds – professionally managed pools of capital with aggressive return targets
• Company insiders – the CEOs, CFOs, and directors who run the business day to day

These groups have more resources, information, and patience than the average retail investor. But, and this matters, having an edge doesn’t mean they’re always right. Blindly copying their moves, without understanding the reasoning behind them, is one of the fastest ways to lose money.

EPF, KWAP, and major foreign funds were all holding Malaysian glove stocks near the peak. The Serba Dinamik governance scandal caught institutional holders completely off guard. Smart money got it wrong, and so did everyone who simply copied them without doing their own thinking.

So smart money signals are a starting point, not a conclusion. The question is how to use them properly.

A Four-Step Investigation Framework

The right way to think about smart money is as one input in a structured process, not a shortcut that replaces research. Here’s the four-question framework used before committing to any position:

1. Is the smart money actually serious about this stock?
2. Do professional analysts still believe in it?
3. Are the company’s own insiders backing it?
4. Does the actual business hold up?

Every question has to pass before moving to the next. If a stock fails even one, walk away. This walkthrough uses Alphabet (Google’s parent company) as the example, using Moomoo‘s built-in tools , which handle most of the data gathering automatically.

Step 1: Is Smart Money Actually Serious?

When a big fund holds a stock, the first question isn’t what they hold, it’s how much they care about that position.

A RM10 million position means nothing to a fund managing RM50 billion. Copying a stock that represents 0.02% of their portfolio means copying a decision they barely considered. What matters is conviction, a position large enough that it actually moves the needle for them, and ideally, one they’re actively adding to rather than quietly trimming.

Moomoo‘s Institution Tracker makes this visible. For any major institution, users can see their full portfolio breakdown: what they bought, what they sold, and what percentage each position represents.

On 15 May 2026, Berkshire Hathaway filed its Q1 2026 13F report, the first under new CEO Greg Abel, after Warren Buffett officially stepped down at the start of 2026. Abel’s first filing was notable. He increased Berkshire’s Alphabet (GOOGL) position by 224%, from roughly 18 million shares to nearly 58 million shares, while fully exiting Amazon, Domino’s, and UnitedHealth.

That is not a casual position adjustment. When a new CEO’s very first major filing triples down on a single name, it reflects high conviction from the most watched institutional portfolio in the world.

Alphabet passes Step 1.

Here’s how you can explore the Institutional Tracker yourself on Moomoo app: 

A practical tip: Moomoo‘s Institution Tracker also covers local institutions like EPF and KWAP on Bursa, not just US funds. The “Follow” feature sends a notification the moment a new disclosure is filed, so instead of reading about it days or weeks later in the news, the update arrives the same day.

For tracking faster-moving players like politically connected portfolios or prominent individual investors, the Insight Page covers names that don’t show up in regular 13F filings.

Step 2: Do Professional Analysts Still Believe in It?

Here’s the problem with Step 1: that 13F filing reflects what the fund held at the end of the previous quarter. By the time it’s visible, the data can be up to 45 days old. Smart money may have bought Alphabet months ago at a much lower price. The real question is whether it still makes sense at today’s price, or whether the opportunity has already passed.

That’s what analyst ratings are designed to answer.

Major investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan globally; CIMB Research, Maybank IB, and MIDF locally, publish research reports with target prices and Buy / Hold / Sell ratings. The challenge is that for any single stock, 20 different analysts might give 20 different opinions, with wildly different target prices.

Moomoo solves this by assigning each analyst their own Star Rating based on actual historical track record: how often their calls were right, how accurate their price targets were, and how the recommended stocks actually performed afterward. A Buy rating from a 5-star analyst carries meaningfully more weight than the same rating from a 1-star one.

Step to Use Moomoo’s Rating Changes: 

Moomoo also includes Morningstar ratings at no extra cost, one of the most respected independent research houses in the world, whose reports normally require a paid subscription.

Running Step 2 on Alphabet: if multiple high-rated analysts still carry upside targets above today’s price, the conclusion is that professional opinion hasn’t soured since the institutional buying happened. The conviction is current, not just historical.

Alphabet passes Step 2.

Step 3: Are the Company’s Own Insiders Backing It?

No one knows more about where a company is actually headed than the people running it. When a CEO, CFO, or director uses their personal money to buy shares in their own company, it’s one of the most honest signals available in public markets. Nobody voluntarily puts money into a sinking ship.

In Malaysia, directors and substantial shareholders are required to declare any share purchases or sales within three days. In the US, these are filed as Form 4 with the SEC. The information is public, but it’s buried across hundreds of company filings, and most retail investors never look at it.

Moomoo‘s Insider Activity section consolidates all of this into a simple dashboard: the number of insiders buying versus selling, and the total dollar amounts involved.

Step to Use Moomoo’s Insider Activity: 

For the Alphabet, the picture isn’t a clean green light. As at 20 May 2026, over the past year, insiders were net sellers, roughly USD 590 million more in sales than purchases, with 148 sellers versus 117 buyers.

The instinct might be to treat this as a red flag. But insider selling requires more careful interpretation than insider buying.

When an executive buys shares with personal money, there’s essentially one reason: they believe the price is going up. Buying is a strong, unambiguous signal. Selling, on the other hand, has dozens of mundane explanations, such as funding a home purchase, estate planning, diversifying personal wealth, or simply managing the fact that most senior executives are paid heavily in company equity and periodically need to convert some of it to cash.

The signal to watch for isn’t any selling, it’s heavy, one-sided selling. Ten sellers and zero buyers. A mass exodus of insiders heading for the exits simultaneously. That’s the pattern that should stop an investigation cold.

That’s not what the Alphabet shows. The activity is split, not a stampede. For a company of this scale, with thousands of employees holding share-based compensation, that ratio is fairly normal.

Alphabet passes Step 3, but with a note. Not a clean green light; more of a “proceed, but stay alert.” That’s how many real investigations end on this question. The signals don’t always line up perfectly. The job is to weigh them accurately, not wait for a scenario where everything is flawless.

Step 4: Does the Actual Business Hold Up?

This is where most investors get into trouble. Three positive signals come in, and they buy, without ever asking whether the underlying company actually makes money.

A stock is not a story or a sentiment score. It is a piece of ownership in a real business, and sooner or later, the numbers are what determine the outcome.

This final step is a fundamental health check, and it only requires five questions:

• Is revenue growing?
• Are profit margins stable, or being squeezed?
• Is debt manageable?
• Does the company pay a consistent dividend, and is it sustainable?
• Is the valuation (PE ratio) reasonable compared to peers, or is the current price mostly hype?

Step to Use Moomoo’s Company Financials:

Running this on Alphabet in Q1 2026:

Profitability is exceptional. Gross margin has climbed steadily, reaching around 60%. Net margin hit nearly 38%, meaning for every USD 100 in revenue, approximately USD 38 is pure profit. Most businesses spend careers chasing margins like that.

The balance sheet is solid. A current ratio of 1.92 and quick ratio of 1.71 both sit comfortably above 1.0, meaning the company has more than enough liquid assets to cover its short-term obligations without stress.

Debt is increasing, and worth watching. Long-term debt moved from roughly 7% in 2024 to around 14% in 2025. In absolute terms, this remains low for a company of Alphabet’s scale, likely driven by AI infrastructure and data centre investment. It is not a red flag today, but the direction of travel is something to note and monitor. Ignoring small cracks because the broader story is appealing is how investors get surprised.

Dividends are minimal. The yield is just 0.23%, and the company pays out only around 8% of profits. Alphabet is not an income stock. But for a growth company that reinvests the vast majority of its earnings back into the business, this is entirely appropriate, the investment case is capital appreciation, not dividend income.

Valuation is not cheap. The PE ratio sits around 30, which is above the industry average. This means buyers today are paying a premium for future earnings. The business quality justifies a premium, but it is worth acknowledging that the current price does not represent a bargain.

Alphabet passes Step 4, with eyes open. The business is growing, highly profitable, and financially sound. But it is priced as a quality company, not an overlooked one, and debt is quietly trending upward.

The Full Picture 

Four questions. Four passes, each with appropriate caveats.

Smart money serious: pass. Analysts are still convinced at today’s price: pass. Insiders mixed, but no sign of mass exits: pass, with a note. Business fundamentally strong: pass, with eyes open.

What’s worth noticing is that none of those four steps required predicting the future. No crystal ball, no insider information, no speculation about macro trends. Just a disciplined process of reading what is already publicly available, and asking the right questions in the right order.

This is how to stop being other people’s exit liquidity, not by finding a hot tip, but by doing the work that most people skip.

Final Thought

Even after completing all four steps on a stock that passes cleanly, the worst mistake is concentrating too heavily on a single name. No matter how strong the signals look, position sizing and diversification matter. Even the world’s most famous investor spreads across dozens of companies.

Investing is also a long-term game. Short-term prices do whatever they want, often for reasons that have nothing to do with business quality. The investors who consistently come out ahead are rarely the ones who time entries perfectly, they’re the ones who show up consistently, month after month, through both good and bad markets.

Please note that everything covered here is a framework, not a guarantee. It shifts the process from chasing trends to actually understanding what is inside the businesses being considered. And that, over time, is the real edge.

If you want to try all these tools yourself, click here to sign up for a Moomoo account to get extra rewards using my special deposit code “ZIET 11”. They are now giving away US stocks, up to RM1,800 worth of Apple stock plus RM 100 cash for new users. Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always conduct your own research and only invest money you can afford to lose.

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The post How to Follow Smart Money Wisely appeared first on Ziet Invests.

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Buying your first stock can feel scary.

You open the app or trading platform, see so many buttons, stock prices moving up and down, words like “limit order”, “bid”, “ask”, “settlement”, “time-in-force”… and suddenly it feels like you need a finance degree just to buy one share.

But don’t worry, once you break it down, buying a stock is actually quite straightforward.

You just need to understand what you are buying, how much you are buying, what price you are paying, and when the trade is completed.

So in this article, let’s go through the basics step by step.

How to Allocate Your First RM10,000

One common mistake beginners make is treating investing as an all or nothing decision. They either invest everything immediately or avoid investing entirely. A more balanced approach is to split your money based on different objectives.

For example, if you have RM10,000, your RM2,000 can act as a liquidity layer that remains accessible when needed. The remaining RM8,000 can be invested with a longer time horizon, allowing it to benefit from market growth and compounding over time.

This simple structure provides both flexibility and growth potential.

New User Sign Up Rewards.

If you haven’t signed up yet, Moomoo does offer attractive sign-up rewards for new users.

Based on the current campaign details provided, new users may receive free Apple shares with deposits starting from RM3,000, and total rewards can go up to RM1,800.

And if you’re planning to check it out, you can use my special deposit code: ‘ZIET11’. This may unlock extra rewards when you deposit, depending on the ongoing campaign.

Using Cash Plus for Your Cash Management Layer

Before investing, it is important to talk about cash. If you have RM10,000, you probably should not throw everything into the US stocks or MY stocks immediately. You still need some money that is flexible and easy to access.

A simple starting point is to keep around 20% of your RM10,000 as a cash management layer. That means about RM2,000 can be kept in a place where it is still accessible, but has the potential to earn better returns than a normal savings account.

This is where MMFs can be useful.

A money market fund (MMF) is a lower-risk place to park extra cash. It usually invests in short-term and relatively stable financial products such as treasury bills, short-term government bonds, certificates of deposit, and commercial papers.

In simple words, it is not meant to make you rich quickly. It is mainly used for cash management.

For example, you may use it for:

• Emergency cash
• Short-term savings
• Money waiting to be invested
• Cash that you want to keep flexible

Many normal savings accounts offer very low interest. Fixed deposits may offer better rates, but they usually require you to lock in your money for a period of time. MMFs are different because they usually allow you to earn returns while still keeping your money relatively flexible.

On Moomoo, this feature is available through Cash Plus. Inside Cash Plus, users can explore different fund options, including MYR funds, USD funds, and Shariah-compliant funds. Their Cash Plus offers around 3.5% per year, with boosted rates of up to 6% for new users depending on promotion.

However, it is important to understand that MMFs are not risk-free. So before putting your money into any fund, always read the fund details and understand what you are investing in.

Another thing beginners should note is the yield shown on the app.

Sometimes, you may see a seven-day yield. This number only reflects what the fund earned over the past seven days. It does not mean you are guaranteed to earn the same return forever.

So instead of only chasing the highest number, look at the fund’s longer-term performance, risk level, and whether it matches your needs.

For your first RM10,000, the goal of this RM2,000 cash layer is simple: keep some money flexible while still giving it a chance to earn something.

And for investors seeking Shariah-compliant options, Cash Plus also provides access to funds such as the Maybank Retail Money Market-I Fund and Eastspring Investments Islamic Income Fund.

Investing in ETFs for Long-Term Growth

Once you have your cash layer, the remaining RM8,000 can be used for long-term growth. For beginners, one of the easiest ways to start is through ETFs.

Instead of depending on one company, you spread your money across many companies. Some may do badly, some may do well, but overall, you are investing in the group. That is why ETFs can be beginner-friendly. They reduce the pressure of having to pick the perfect stock.

For example, if you buy an ETF, you are getting exposure to a lot of large companies in the US market. You are not betting everything on one company alone.

Let’s say when you buy S&P 500 like SPY or VOO, you are basically buying a small slice of 500 of the largest listed companies in the US.

So instead of choosing between Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Meta or Google one by one, the ETF gives you exposure to many of them in one basket.

This matters because individual stocks can be much more volatile. But of course, they are not risk-free. If the whole market falls, they can fall too. But they help reduce the risk of choosing the wrong individual company.

Today, there are many types of ETFs. Some track broad markets like the S&P 500 or Nasdaq. Some focus on gold, bonds, dividends, technology, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, or other regions.

On Moomoo, beginners can search for ETFs directly and compare the details. There is also an ETF screener that allows users to filter based on market, sector, dividends, and other criteria.

This is helpful because many beginners do not know where to start. Instead of randomly searching online, you can use the screener to narrow down your options first.

Another misconception is that investing requires a large amount of money.

Thanks to fractional investing, you can start investing in many US-listed ETFs with as little as USD5. This lowers the barrier to entry significantly and allows beginners to start building exposure even with a modest budget.

Moomoo AI can also help simplify the research process by summarising market updates and providing quick insights into different ETFs. While these tools can be useful starting points, your investment decisions should always be based on your own financial goals, risk tolerance, and time horizon.

Building a DCA Strategy with Regular Savings Plan (RSP)

Investing your first RM10,000 is a great start, but long-term wealth is rarely built from a single investment decision. The next step is developing a habit of investing consistently.

This is where Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) comes in. DCA simply means investing a fixed amount of money regularly over time. For example, instead of trying to invest a large amount at the perfect time, you invest RM200, or any amount you are comfortable with every month. When prices are high, your money buys fewer units. When prices are lower, your money buys more units. Over time, this helps smooth out your average buying price.

However, the challenge is that consistency is often easier said than done. When markets fall, many people become hesitant and delay investing while waiting for the “right” moment. Unfortunately, that moment rarely feels obvious in real time.

To help solve this problem, Moomoo offers a Regular Savings Plan (RSP), which automates your DCA strategy. You simply choose what you want to invest in and set a schedule whether you want to invest daily, weekly, or monthly. And the minimum investment can be as low as USD5, making it accessible even for beginners.

If you’re unsure how much to invest or how frequently to invest, Moomoo‘s RSP Calculator can help. It allows you to visualise different investing scenarios before committing real money, making it easier to build a plan that fits your budget and goals.

Beyond convenience, the biggest benefit of DCA is psychological. It removes much of the pressure associated with market timing and helps investors stay disciplined regardless of market conditions.

Markets can be emotional. During periods of volatility, even experienced investors can feel uncertain. By automating your investments through an RSP, you create a system that continues working even when emotions tell you to do otherwise.

For many people, this is one of the most effective ways to build long-term investing discipline.

Common Beginner Mistakes to Avoid

Starting your investment journey is exciting, but it’s equally important to avoid some of the mistakes that often derail new investors.

1. Panic Selling During Market Declines

Every investor will eventually experience market volatility. When prices fall, it’s natural to feel uncomfortable. However, selling purely because the market is dropping can turn temporary losses into permanent ones.

Before you invest in anything, take the time to understand why you’re buying it, how long you plan to hold it, and what role it plays in your overall portfolio. When you have a clear reason for investing, it becomes much easier to stay calm during periods of market volatility.

2. Ignoring Fees and Costs

Fees may seem insignificant at first, but they can have a meaningful impact on long-term returns.

Before you invest, make sure you understand the costs involved, including fund expense ratios, trading commissions, platform fees, and currency conversion charges. While each fee may appear insignificant on its own, they can add up over the years and reduce the overall growth of your portfolio.

3. Making Emotional Investment Decisions

It’s easy to feel tempted when everyone online is talking about a particular stock. It’s equally easy to panic when markets turn negative and prices start falling. Unfortunately, making decisions based on hype, fear, or FOMO rarely leads to good long-term outcomes.

Instead, focus on building a process that helps you stay disciplined. This is one reason why strategies like Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) and automated investing plans such as Moomoo‘s Regular Savings Plan (RSP) can be useful. 

By investing consistently on a fixed schedule, you can reduce the temptation to constantly react to short-term market movements and stay focused on your long-term goals.

Practise Before You Risk Your Real Money

Many beginners think they need to start investing immediately. But the reality is, you don’t have to risk real money on day one.

One useful feature inside Moomoo is Paper Trading, which allows you to practise investing using virtual money.

You can test different strategies, learn how placing buy and sell orders works, and get familiar with market movements without risking your actual savings.

Of course, paper trading isn’t exactly the same as investing with real money. The emotions are different when your own money is on the line.

But it gives beginners a safe environment to build confidence, understand how the market works, and learn basic risk management before committing real funds.

Other Research and Learning Tools Inside Moomoo

Moomoo also has research tools that can help beginners learn more before making decisions.

For those looking to analyse companies more thoroughly, Moomoo‘s Stock Screener allows users to filter stocks based on factors such as revenue and profit growth, company size, dividend yields, valuation metrics, financial performance as well as technical indicators.

Meanwhile, the Heat List highlights stocks that are attracting significant market attention. While popularity alone shouldn’t determine an investment decision, it can serve as a useful starting point for further research.

Of course, no tool should replace independent research. Instead, these features are best viewed as resources that help investors organise information and identify potential opportunities more efficiently.

Beyond market research tools, Moomoo also offers educational content that is helpful for anyone still building their investing knowledge. Instead of jumping straight into the market and figuring things out through trial and error, you can access more than 700 educational resources covering topics such as investing fundamentals, ETFs, stocks, market terminology, portfolio building, risk management, and platform tutorials.

This can be particularly helpful for beginners who often feel overwhelmed by unfamiliar terms like P/E ratios, market capitalisation, dividends, or dollar-cost averaging. 

And for those who prefer in-person assistance, Moomoo also operates physical stores in locations such as KL Eco City, One Utama, and Pavilion Bukit Jalil, where users can seek guidance and support directly.

A Beginner-Friendly RM10,000 Investment Plan

So how can a beginner think about allocating their first RM10,000?

Here is a simple example. First, keep RM2,000 in a cash management layer.

This can be used for short-term flexibility. It gives you breathing room and prevents you from investing every single ringgit into the market immediately.

Second, allocate RM8,000 for long-term growth. For beginners, this could be through broad-based ETFs instead of individual stocks. Broad ETFs are easier to understand, more diversified, and less dependent on one company.

Third, build a monthly investing habit after that. For example, you could invest 10% of your monthly income. If 10% feels too much, start with a smaller amount. The amount is less important than building the habit.

You can use RSP to automate this process so that you do not need to manually decide every month.

A simple structure could look like this:

However, this structure is not a universal formula but it demonstrates how investors can balance liquidity, growth, and consistency. The exact allocation should always depend on personal goals, risk tolerance, and financial circumstances.

Final Thought

Your first RM10,000 does not need to be complicated.

A better approach is to keep things simple. Keep some money flexible. Invest some money for long-term growth. Then slowly build a monthly investing habit.

Cash management helps you stay prepared. ETFs help you start investing without relying too much on one company. DCA helps you stay consistent even when the market moves up and down.

And most importantly, learning helps you make better decisions over time.

Before investing, always understand what you are buying, know your own risk tolerance, and make decisions based on your own financial situation.

*T&Cs apply. All views expressed in this blog are the independent opinions of Ziet, which are not shared by Moomoo Securities Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (“Moomoo MY”). No content shall be considered financial advice or recommendation. Moomoo MY links are included in this post, through which referrals are made and I may receive certain commissions. Please contact Moomoo MY for more information.

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The post Your First RM10,000: A Simple Beginner’s Guide to Investing in Malaysia appeared first on Ziet Invests.

Estimated reading time: 16 minutes

If you’ve just signed up for Moomoo Malaysia and you’re staring at the app wondering where to even begin, this guide is for you.

Think of this as your end-to-end roadmap, taking you from absolute zero to your very first investment.

Here is a quick breakdown of the steps ahead:

• Strategizing: Choosing the right assets for your risk tolerance and researching companies.
• Executing: Placing your first trade, tracking your portfolio, and selling.
• Cashing out: Exactly how to withdraw your funds when the time comes.

And before we dive in, this blog will use Moomoo as the tutorial app. If you haven’t signed up yet, use my link here and enter code ZIET11 to unlock exclusive rewards.

Choosing What to Invest In (Risk vs Reward)

Before you jump into stocks, take a step back and ask yourself three things:

• Time horizon: Are you investing for 2-3 years, or for the long run (5 to 10 years)?
• Risk appetite: How much volatility (price going up and down) can you handle without panicking?
• Investment goal: Do you want your money to grow over time, or do you need regular passive income from dividends?

Your answers will naturally point you toward the right type of investment.

The general rule is simple: higher risk, higher potential reward, and vice versa. Here’s a rough framework based on three levels of risk tolerance:

Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Sources: RinggitPlus, EPF, BNM, Vanguard, StateStreet, iProperty, Curvo.

Yes, some of those higher-end numbers look very attractive. But it’s just as important to understand that they can go the other way too. Nothing is guaranteed here.

One practical way to reduce risk is through diversification, which means spreading your money across different asset types, sectors, or markets so you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket. The right mix will depend on your risk tolerance.

Top Down Analysis: Country → Sector → Asset

When it comes to researching where to invest, most experienced investors use what’s called a Top Down Analysis. You start big, then zoom in: country first, then sector, then individual stock.

Step 1: Country (Macro Level)

Start by identifying which country has a good investment climate. You generally want to look for economies that support free trade, have stable monetary policies, and are attracting investment in high-growth industries like tech.

Some useful indicators:

• GDP (Gross Domestic Product): Measures how fast an economy is growing. An upward trend is a positive sign.
• Political climate: Political instability is bad for markets because it introduces unpredictable policy risk. Look for markets with minimal drama.
• Currency strength: If the local currency weakens against the Ringgit, your investment might look good on paper but lose value once converted back.

You can find economic data like GDP, CPI, imports and exports directly on the Moomoo app: go to Market → MY → Economic Calendar.

Step 2: Sector

Once you’ve picked a market, compare the different industries within it. You’re looking for the sector that drives the most economic activity. For Malaysia, that might be banking. For the US, it’s typically tech.

On the Moomoo app: Market → MY → Heat Map. Larger squares = bigger sectors. Green = trending up for the day. Red = trending down.

You can also check Investment Themes for hot sectors, or browse Featured Lists for stock ideas.

Step 3: Stock

Once you’ve narrowed down to a sector, pick a company you understand or have conviction in. For this guide, we’ll use Maybank as an example, one of the largest banks in Malaysia. But the same process applies to any stock, whether it’s on Bursa Malaysia or the US market.

Fundamental Analysis: Tabs You Need to Know

This is the part where you actually study the company. It sounds intimidating but Moomoo makes it very accessible. Most of the data is already calculated for you.

Tab 1: Chart

The chart shows price movement over different time periods, from 1 day all the way to the full history since IPO. These charts help you visualise price trends, support levels, and resistance levels. Useful for active traders, though less critical for long-term investors.

Tab 2: Warrants

Think of a warrant like an option. It’s issued by the company itself, and you can buy it just like a regular stock.

Once you hold a warrant, you have the right to subscribe for new ordinary shares at a fixed price (called the strike price) within a set period (the expiry date). If the market moves in your favour and buying via the warrant is cheaper than buying from the open market, you exercise it. If not, you simply let it expire without doing anything – no obligation.

For example, if a warrant has a strike price of RM 8.00 but the stock is trading at RM 7.50, there’s no reason to exercise. You’d just let it go. But if the stock rises to RM 9.00, that same warrant suddenly looks attractive.

That said, warrants add a layer of complexity that isn’t necessary when you’re just getting started. Stick with regular stocks and ETFs first, and revisit warrants once you’re more comfortable with how markets move.

Tab 3: Comments

The Comments section shows what other Moomoo users are saying about the stock. Sometimes you’ll find sharp insights, sometimes completely the opposite view to yours, which is actually valuable. It’s a good way to pressure-test your own thesis and check if your view might be biased.

Tab 4: News

All relevant news for the stock is aggregated here, from Moomoo’s own team plus sources like The Edge Markets, Business Today, and Bernama. There’s also an Announcements tab for official company releases and a Ratings tab for analyst recommendations. Just remember to read these critically, not blindly.

Tab 5: Company (Financials)

This is where the real due diligence happens. The Company tab pulls together everything you need for quantitative analysis: Revenue Estimates, Analyst Ratings, Company Valuation, Key Financials, Revenue Breakdown, and more. 

• Under Company Valuation, you’ll find:

P/E (Price-to-Earnings): Compares the stock’s price to how much the company earns per share.

• High P/E: investors expect strong future growth, or the stock may be overpriced
• Low P/E: could be a bargain, or could reflect a struggling business
• Always compare against the industry average, not in isolation

P/B (Price-to-Book): Compares the stock price to the company’s net asset value (what it would be worth if you liquidated everything and paid off all debts).

• P/B below 1: you’re buying the company for less than its book value, which can signal an undervalued stock
• Commonly used to evaluate banks and financial companies

P/S (Price-to-Sales): Compares the stock price to the company’s total revenue.

• Most useful for companies that aren’t yet profitable, where P/E isn’t applicable
• Lower P/S generally means the stock is cheaper relative to the revenue it generates

These ratios help you compare the stock against its industry average or a specific competitor. You can even add a competing company directly in the app via the Compare function.

Under Key Financials, you’ll find metrics like Net Profit Margin, Earnings Per Share (EPS), and the full financial report. Moomoo also breaks down revenue by business segment and by market geography.

The three core financial statements (Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow) are also accessible here.

Don’t forget to check Major Shareholders. If institutions like EPF (the government pension fund) are holding a significant portion of a company’s shares, that tells you something about the quality of the business. Big, careful institutional money doesn’t go just anywhere.

Finally, scroll down to Dividends to see the payout history, dividend per share, ex-dividend date, and payment date. If you buy a stock before the ex-dividend date, you qualify for the upcoming payout.

Setting Up Your Watchlist

Found a stock you’re interested in but not ready to buy yet? Add it to your watchlist.

Search for the stock, open it, and tap the heart icon at the top of the page. That’s it. You can then access your full watchlist from the bottom-left of the app. You can also organise your watchlist into custom categories, grouping by sector or market, for example.

How to Buy a Stock on Moomoo

This is the fun part.

Search for your stock (or find it in your watchlist), tap Trade, and you’ll see the order screen.

Quick note on trading hours:

For US stocks specifically, Moomoo supports 24-hour trading on weekdays, which is handy if you want to place a trade outside regular market hours.

Order types to know:

• Limit Order (default): You set the price you want to buy at. The trade only goes through when the stock hits that price.
• Market Order: Buy immediately at the current market price.
• Odd Lot: Useful if you want fewer than 100 shares (the standard lot size on Bursa Malaysia). For US stocks, you can buy as little as 1 share or even a fraction of a share.

Time in Force:

• Day: Order expires at the end of today’s trading session.
• GTD (Good Till Date): Order stays open until a date you specify.
• GTC (Good Till Cancelled): Order stays open for up to 90 days.

Once you’ve set your order type, price, and quantity, tap Buy. You’ll receive a notification once the order is fulfilled. You can check your positions under Portfolio and see the order status under the Orders tab. If you want to learn more we have covered that in a different blog.

Monitoring Your Portfolio

After buying, go to Account → Assets to see your full portfolio. Under Positions, you’ll find each stock, its current market value, your average buying price, and your unrealised profit or loss.

It’s completely normal to feel anxious when prices drop. But investing is a long-term game. Short-term movements are noise. What matters is the longer-term trajectory.

Here’s something worth looking at: pull up a stock’s 1D or 6M chart and it might look all red. But zoom out to 1Y or 5Y, and a fundamentally sound company will almost always show a different picture.

Check your portfolio occasionally. But don’t let daily price movements consume your mental bandwidth.

How to Sell a Stock

Go to Account → Assets → Positions, select the stock you want to sell, and tap Trade. Choose your order type (Limit or Market), enter how many shares you want to sell, and hit Sell.

If you want to automatically protect yourself from large losses, you can use Stop Limit orders:

• Set a Trigger Price (the price at which the order activates).
• Set a Sell Price (the minimum price you’re willing to accept).

For example: Apple is at USD 200. You’re okay cutting losses if it falls to USD 180. Set trigger at USD 190, limit at USD 180. If the stock drops to USD 190, Moomoo will try to sell it between USD 180 and USD 190.

On the flip side, if you want to lock in a profit target, use a Limit-If-Touched order. Same concept, but for taking profit instead of limiting loss.

That said, for most investors, a Limit or Market order is more than enough.

One important note on settlement: after selling, the cash doesn’t become available for withdrawal immediately.

• Malaysia: T+2 (two trading days to settle)
• US: T+1 (one trading day to settle)

How to Withdraw Your Money

Head to Account → Transfers → Withdraw. Enter your bank details and follow the steps. Money typically reflects in your bank account within 1 to 3 business days.

Final Thought

That’s the full picture, from funding your account to cashing out your returns.

Investing doesn’t need to be complicated. But it does require you to be intentional: understand what you’re buying, know your risk tolerance, and have a plan for the long run.

If you’re just getting started and want exclusive rewards on Moomoo, sign up using my link below and deposit with code ZIET11.

If you prefer a video version of this article, I have made a video covering the exact same thing -do check it out here! Thanks for reading!

*T&Cs apply. All views expressed in this blog are the independent opinions of Ziet, which are not shared by Moomoo Securities Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (“Moomoo MY”). No content shall be considered financial advice or recommendation. Moomoo MY links are included in this post, through which referrals are made and I may receive certain commissions. Please contact Moomoo MY for more information.

Share the Wealth

Found this information useful? Share this post with your friends and family to help them stay informed about what’s happening around them. And if you’re not already subscribed, join our community to receive more insightful content directly to your hands.

The post Your First Investment: A Step-by-Step Beginner’s Guide On How To Study A Company (with Moomoo) appeared first on Ziet Invests.

Estimated reading time: 16 minutes

Buying your first stock can feel scary.

You open the app or trading platform, see so many buttons, stock prices moving up and down, words like “limit order”, “bid”, “ask”, “settlement”, “time-in-force”… and suddenly it feels like you need a finance degree just to buy one share.

But don’t worry, once you break it down, buying a stock is actually quite straightforward.

You just need to understand what you are buying, how much you are buying, what price you are paying, and when the trade is completed.

So in this article, let’s go through the basics step by step.

What Is a Stock?

A stock, such as a Malaysia stock or US stock, is basically a small ownership stake in a company.

When a company becomes publicly listed, investors can buy and sell its shares on a stock exchange, such as Bursa Malaysia, the New York Stock Exchange, or Nasdaq.

So when you buy a stock, you are not just buying a random price chart.

You are buying a small piece of a real business.

For example, if you buy Apple shares, you own a tiny part of Apple. If you buy Maybank shares, you own a tiny part of Maybank.

There are generally two ways investors make money from stocks:

1. Capital gain: when the stock price goes up and you sell at a higher price.
2. Dividend: when the company distributes part of its profits to shareholders.

Of course, stock prices can also go down. So before you buy anything, you need to understand both the upside and the risk.

What Is Shareholding?

Shareholding simply means how much of a company you own.

Imagine a company is divided into 10 equal pieces. If you buy 1 piece, you own 1 out of 10 pieces.

That means your shareholding is: 1 / 10 × 100% = 10%

In the real stock market, companies are divided into millions or even billions of shares. So for retail investors like us, our ownership percentage is usually very small.

But the idea is the same.

When you buy shares, you become a shareholder. You own a tiny slice of the business, and your investment value moves together with how the market values that business.

Step 1: Deposit Money Into Your Brokerage Account

Before you can buy your first stock, you need to deposit money into your brokerage account.

The deposit process usually looks something like this:

1. Create an account first. 
2. Search ‘Special Deposit’. 
3. Key in code ‘ZIET11’.
4. Click ‘Deposit Now’.
5. Select FPX Express Deposit (my usual go-to among other methods)
6. Choose your bank.
7. Fill in the amount you want to deposit.
8. Confirm the transfer.

One important reminder: only deposit money that you are ready to invest. Don’t use emergency savings, rent money, or money you need in the short term.

Investing should help you build wealth, not create unnecessary financial stress.If you don’t have a broker account yet, here’s some good news for you. For a very limited time, new users will get up to RM1,900 worth of welcome rewards when you sign up. So feel free to use my exclusive code ‘ZIET11’ to unlock all the new users’ rewards!

Step 2: Search for the Stock You Want to Buy

Once your money is inside your brokerage account, you can start searching for the stock.

You can usually search by:

• Company name, for example “Apple” or “Maybank”
• Ticker symbol, for example “AAPL” or “MAYBANK”

After you find the stock, click into it, then tap Trade or Buy.

This will bring you to the order page. And this is where many beginners get confused.

Because suddenly you’ll see things like:

• Session
• Price
• Order type
• Quantity
• Time-in-force

Let’s go through them one by one.

Step 3: Understand Trading Sessions

A trading session refers to when the stock market is open for buying and selling.

Generally, stock markets operate from Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays or special market closures.

For the US market, you may also see different sessions like:

• Pre-market
• Regular market hours
• After-hours trading

For beginners, it is usually easier to trade during normal market hours because there tends to be more volume and tighter spreads.

In simple terms: more buyers, more sellers, and usually fairer pricing.

So if you’re buying your first stock, don’t overcomplicate it. Start with regular trading hours.

Step 4: Understand Share Price

The share price is the price at which a stock is currently being bought or sold.

But here’s something many beginners misunderstand:

A stock is not automatically “cheap” just because its price is low.

For example, a RM1 stock is not necessarily cheaper than a RM100 stock.

Because share price depends on how many shares the company has.

The basic formula is: Share Price = Market Capitalisation / Outstanding Shares

So instead of only looking at share price, investors usually look at the overall value of the company, its earnings, growth, business quality, and valuation.

A stock price tells you what the market is currently willing to pay. It does not automatically tell you whether the company is good or bad.

Step 5: How Does Share Price Move?

Stock prices move because of buyers and sellers. There are three important terms to understand:

Bid Price

The bid price is the price someone is willing to buy the stock for.

For example, if someone is willing to buy Apple at USD274.50, that is the bid.

Ask Price

The ask price is the price someone is willing to sell the stock for.

For example, if someone wants to sell Apple at USD275.00, that is the ask.

Market Price

The market price is usually the latest traded price or the price shown around the midpoint between buyers and sellers.

The gap between the bid and ask is called the spread.

Usually, when more buyers are willing to pay higher prices, the stock price moves up. When more sellers are willing to sell at lower prices, the stock price moves down.

That’s the basic mechanism. Something like supply and demand.

Step 6: Choose Your Order Type

An order type is the instruction you give your broker on how to execute your trade.

The two most common order types beginners should understand are:

Market Order

A market order means you buy immediately at the current market price.

For example:

Buy Apple at the current market price of around USD274.61.

The advantage is speed. Your order is more likely to be executed quickly.

The downside is that you have less control over the final price, especially if the stock is moving fast.

Limit Order

A limit order means you choose the maximum price you are willing to pay.

For example:

Buy Apple only at USD274.00 or lower.

The advantage is price control. You won’t accidentally buy at a much higher price than expected.

The downside is that your order may not be executed if the market price never reaches your limit price.

For beginners, limit orders are usually easier to control because you know the exact price you are willing to accept.

What About Stop Loss?

A stop-loss order is an instruction to automatically sell a stock when it falls to a specific price.

It is mainly used to limit potential losses or protect profits without needing to monitor the market all day.

For example, if you bought a stock at RM10, you may set a stop loss at RM9. If the price falls to RM9, your broker will trigger the sell order.

Here’s some tips to decide your risk before buying:

• How much are you willing to lose?
• How much of your portfolio should one stock take up?
• Are you buying for short-term trading or long-term investing?

Step 7: Decide Your Quantity

Quantity means how many shares you want to buy.

For US stocks, many platforms allow you to buy whole shares or even fractional shares.

For example, if Apple is trading at USD274.61:

• 1 share = USD274.61
• 0.5 share = USD137.31
• 0.1 share = USD27.46
• 0.01 share = USD2.75

This is useful for beginners because you don’t need a huge amount of capital to start.

For Malaysia stocks, it usually works by lots.

In Malaysia: 1 lot = 100 shares

So if Maybank is trading at RM10.30:

• 1 lot = 100 shares = RM1,030
• 0.5 lot = 50 shares = RM515
• 0.1 lot = 10 shares = RM103
• 0.01 lot = 1 share = RM10.30

Depending on the broker and market, the minimum tradable quantity may differ. So always check the app before placing your order.

The simple formula is: Total Cost = Share Price × Number of Shares + Fees

Step 8: Choose Time-in-Force

Time-in-force tells your broker how long your order should stay active.

There are three common types:

Day Order

A day order only lasts for that trading day.

If the order is not executed by the end of the day, it expires automatically.

Example:

Buy Apple at USD274.00 today only.

GTD — Good-Till-Date

A GTD order stays active until the date you choose.

Example:

Buy Apple at USD274.00 until 31 December 2025.

If the price reaches your target before that date, the order may execute. If not, it expires.

GTC — Good-Till-Cancelled

A GTC order stays active until it is executed or until you manually cancel it.

Example:

Buy Apple at USD274.00 until I cancel this order.

This is useful if you have a long-term target price, but you should still monitor your open orders.

You don’t want to forget an order exists and accidentally buy something weeks later without remembering why.

Which Stock Should You Start With?

For beginners, one common question is:

Should I buy individual stocks or ETFs?

An individual stock gives you exposure to one company.

For example, buying Nvidia means your return depends heavily on Nvidia’s business performance, investor expectations, and share price movement.

The upside can be higher, but the risk is also more concentrated.

An ETF, on the other hand, gives you exposure to a basket of stocks.

For example, an S&P 500 ETF like VOO gives investors exposure to around 500 large US companies. Instead of betting on one company, you are buying a basket of companies.

That means:

• More diversification
• Lower single-company risk
• Lower cost compared to many actively managed funds
• Easier for beginners to understand

This does not mean ETFs are risk-free. They can still go down when the market falls.

But compared to picking one company, ETFs are often a cleaner starting point for beginners who want broad market exposure without analysing every single stock.

Step 9: How to Withdraw Money

At some point, you may want to withdraw your cash.

The withdrawal process is usually:

1. Go to Accounts.
2. Click Transfers.
3. Click Withdraw.
4. Input the amount.
5. Confirm.

Also, if your money is currently invested in stocks, you cannot withdraw it immediately. You need to sell the stock first, then wait for settlement.

Which brings us to the next important point.

Step 10: Understand Settlement

Settlement is when a trade is officially completed.

It is the point where:

• The buyer pays the seller
• The seller delivers the shares
• The cash becomes cleared

This matters because when you sell a stock, the cash may appear in your account, but it may not be withdrawable immediately.

You need to wait for the settlement period.

As of current official market information, Bursa Malaysia normal transactions settle on T+2, meaning two trading days after the transaction date. Singapore and Hong Kong cash stock markets also generally use T+2 settlement.

So if you sell a Malaysia stock on Monday, the cash may only be fully settled on Wednesday.

Different markets can have different rules, so always check your broker’s latest settlement information inside the app.

A Simple First-Stock Checklist

Before you buy your first stock, ask yourself:

1. Do I understand what this company does?
2. Am I buying because I researched it, or because everyone online is talking about it?
3. How much of my portfolio will this stock take up?
4. Am I using a market order or limit order?
5. What price am I willing to pay?
6. How many shares am I buying?
7. Do I understand the fees?
8. Do I know when my trade will settle?
9. Am I prepared if the stock drops 10%, 20%, or more?

If you cannot answer these questions, slow down.

The stock market will still be there tomorrow.

Trading fees (Moomoo Malaysia)

Sign Up Now to Make Your First Trade (Limited time exclusive rewards!)

Click here to create an account or use my exclusive code ‘ZIET11’ to unlock all the new users’ rewards!

Final Thought

Buying your first stock is not about trying to get rich quickly. It is about learning how the market works.

Once you understand stocks, shareholding, bid and ask prices, order types, quantity, settlement, and withdrawals, the whole process becomes much less intimidating.

Start small. Learn the mechanics. Make mistakes with small amounts, not your life savings.

And most importantly, remember that buying a stock means buying a piece of a business.

Treat it like ownership, not gambling. That is how you build confidence as an investor.

*T&Cs apply. All views expressed in this blog are the independent opinions of Ziet, which are not shared by Moomoo Securities Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (“Moomoo MY”). No content shall be considered financial advice or recommendation. Moomoo MY links are included in this post, through which referrals are made and I may receive certain commissions. Please contact Moomoo MY for more information.

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The post How to Place Your First Trade Order: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners (with moomoo app) appeared first on Ziet Invests.

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Most people think financial freedom means quitting your job, starting a business, or suddenly becoming a full-time investor.

But for most working adults, financial freedom actually starts with something much more boring – Your monthly salary.

If you are working a 9-to-6 job, the goal is not to escape work overnight. The goal is to slowly build a system where your money starts working quietly in the background, even while you sleep, work, eat, or scroll TikTok at night.

And honestly, that is how most people should approach wealth. Not through hype. Not through gambling. Not through “all-in” decisions. But through better money habits, consistent investing, and understanding the trade-offs behind every financial decision.

So in this article, let’s break down the 9-6 financial freedom guide.

Start With the 50/30/20 Rule

Before we even talk about investing, we need to talk about budgeting.

Because no matter how good your investment strategy is, it won’t matter if every month you earn RM5,000 and spend RM5,300.A simple starting point is the 50/30/20 budgeting rule. The idea is:

Is this rule perfect? No.

If you live in KL and rent is expensive, your “needs” may be more than 50%. If you live with your parents, your needs may be much lower.

But the point is not to follow the rule blindly. The point is to have a simple framework. Because once you can see where your money goes, you can finally control it.

The Real Trick: Pay Yourself First

Most people manage money like this:

Salary comes in → pay rent → pay car loan → buy food → go out → pay subscriptions → whatever is left, save.

The problem is, usually there is nothing left. That is why the more useful method is to pay yourself first.

Meaning, the moment your salary comes in, you immediately set aside money for savings and investments before spending on everything else.

For example, if your salary is RM5,000, your monthly waterfall could look like this:

Notice the key difference. Savings and investments come first, not last.

This one change is powerful because it forces your lifestyle to adjust around your financial goals, instead of letting your financial goals become whatever is left after your lifestyle. Very simple. But very effective.

Track Your Net Worth, Not Just Your Salary

A lot of people measure financial progress by salary.

“My salary is RM4,000.”

“My salary is RM8,000.”

“My salary is RM15,000.”

But salary alone does not tell the full story.

Someone earning RM15,000 but spending RM16,000 is not financially healthy. Meanwhile, someone earning RM5,000 but saving and investing consistently may be building wealth quietly.

That is why you should track your net worth.

The formula is simple: Net Worth = Assets – Liabilities

Your assets include things like:

• Savings
• EPF
• Property
• Investments
• Business ownership

Your liabilities include:

• PTPTN
• Car loan
• House loan
• Credit card debt
• Personal loan

This gives you a much clearer picture of where you actually stand. Because the goal is not just to earn more. The goal is to slowly increase your assets and reduce bad liabilities. That is how wealth is built.

Understand Opportunity Cost

Every financial decision has a trade-off. When you choose one thing, you are giving up something else. That is the opportunity cost.

If you spend RM300 on a night out, that RM300 is no longer available for investing, emergency savings, courses, books, or anything else that may improve your life. This does not mean you should never spend money.

But it does mean you should understand what each decision costs you – not just in ringgit, but in future options.

For example:

• Buying a new phone may cost you RM4,000.
• But the opportunity cost could be one course that improves your skills.
• Or a few months of ETF investing.
• Or an emergency fund buffer.
• Or capital to start a small side hustle.

Once you understand opportunity cost, money becomes more than just “can afford or cannot afford”. The better question becomes: Is this the best use of my money right now?

Use Money to Buy Opportunities

Here’s something I think many people get wrong. Money is not just for spending. Money is for buying opportunities.

That is the real value of money. Not flexing. Not showing off. Not buying things just to prove that you’re successful. Money gives you options. And options are freedom.

There are generally four things money can help you buy.

1. Freedom of Choice

With enough savings, you don’t have to accept every bad opportunity.

You can reject toxic jobs, negotiate better, or take time to think before making big life decisions.

2. Skills

Courses, certifications, mentorships, books, events – these can be some of the highest ROI spending if they help you increase your income.

3. Time

Sometimes, spending money to save time is worth it.

For example, outsourcing cleaning, taking Grab when it saves hours, or paying for tools that reduce repetitive work.

Not because you’re lazy. But because your time can be redirected into higher-value work.

4. Bigger Opportunities

Once you have capital, you can invest, compound, start a business, or take risks that were not available when you were living paycheck to paycheck. 

This is why money management matters. Because money is not the end goal. Money is the tool that helps you create more choices.

The Money Formula: Time = Money

We often hear people say “time is money”. But the relationship is actually deeper than that.

The simple money formula looks like this:

Money → Buys Time → Helps You Solve Problems → Saves More Time → Creates More Money

That’s the loop. The more money you have, the more time you can buy. The more time you have, the more problems you can solve. The more valuable problems you solve, the more money you can make.

This is also why skills matter. If you can solve bigger problems, whether in your job, business, content, sales, finance, tech, or operations, your earning power increases.

And once your earning power increases, you can save and invest more. 

So financial freedom is not just about cutting expenses. It is also about increasing your ability to solve valuable problems.

Know the Risk and Reward of Different Assets

Not all investments are the same. Some are low risk but lower return. Some are higher risk but potentially higher return. Some are liquid. Some are beginner-friendly. Some are absolutely not for beginners.

This is not a guarantee of return. It is just a rough way to understand the relationship between risk and reward. Generally, the higher the potential return, the higher the risk.

Cash and fixed deposits are safer, but returns are lower.

Malaysia stocks, US stocks, ETFs, REITs, and property can grow wealth over time, but values can fluctuate.

Options and crypto can move very fast, but they can also destroy capital very fast.

So if you are still new, don’t start at the most complicated end of the spectrum. Start with the basics.

Why ETFs Are Beginner-Friendly

If you are a working adult with a full-time job, you probably don’t have time to analyse 50 individual companies every week.

That is why ETFs can be a good starting point.

An ETF, or exchange-traded fund, lets you invest into a basket of stocks through one single instrument.

For example:

• VOO gives exposure to the S&P 500.
• QQQM tracks the Nasdaq-100, which is more technology-heavy.
• VIG focuses on US companies with a history of increasing dividends.
• VTI gives broad exposure to the US stock market.
• VT gives exposure to the global stock market.

The main benefit is diversification. Instead of betting everything on one company, you spread your risk across many companies.

For example, buying one individual stock like Nvidia means your investment depends heavily on Nvidia’s performance. But buying a broad ETF means you are investing into a whole basket of companies.

That does not mean ETFs cannot fall. They can. But for most beginners, ETFs are often simpler than trying to pick the next big stock.

How to Start Investing

Once you understand budgeting, net worth, opportunity cost, and risk, then only we talk about platforms.

On a brokerage app or trading platform like Moomoo, investors can look at:

• Stock charts
• Fund performance
• News & Announcements
• Fund profiles
• Dividend summaries
• Portfolio holdings
• ETF comparison tools
• Regular Savings Plans
• Money market funds

These tools help you understand what you are buying before you invest.

And this is important because many beginners do the opposite. They buy first, then research later. Please don’t.

Research first. Understand first. Then only invest.

Regular Savings Plan: Automating Your Investing Habit

One useful feature for working adults is a Regular Savings Plan (RSP).

Instead of manually deciding every month whether to invest, you can set a recurring plan.

For example:

• Invest RM500 every month into an ETF
• Invest weekly into a selected asset
• Build positions slowly over time

This helps remove emotions from the process. Because in real life, most people are bad at timing the market.

When prices go up, they feel FOMO. When prices go down, they panic. When the market is boring, they forget to invest.

A regular savings plan solves this by turning investing into a habit. Not perfect, but practical. And for 9-to-6 workers, practicality matters a lot.

Cash Plus and Money Market Funds

Not all your money needs to go into stocks or ETFs. Some money should stay liquid.

This is where money market funds can be useful.

A money market fund is generally lower risk compared to stocks. It is commonly used for short-term cash parking, emergency funds, or idle cash that you don’t want to leave earning close to nothing.

Moomoo Cash Plus is positioned as a lower-risk product with features like:

• Potential returns around 2.7%–6% p.a. depending on fund and market conditions
• High liquidity
• No lock-in
• Suitable as a starter-level instrument

This can be useful for people who are not ready to invest everything into the stock market yet.

For example, instead of keeping all extra cash in a normal savings account, you can consider placing part of it into a low-risk cash management product while keeping it accessible.

But remember: lower risk does not mean zero risk. Always read the fund documents and understand where your money goes.

Sign Up Now to Make Your First Trade (Limited time exclusive rewards!)

Click here to create an account or use my exclusive code ‘ZIET11’ to unlock all the new users’ rewards!

The Real Path for a 9-to-6 Worker

If I had to simplify the whole financial freedom journey for a working adult, it would look like this:

1. Track your income and expenses.
2. Use the 50/30/20 rule as a starting guide.
3. Pay yourself first.
4. Build emergency savings.
5. Track your net worth.
6. Understand opportunity cost.
7. Use money to buy skills, time, and options.
8. Start investing with suitable risk.
9. Use ETFs or diversified instruments if you don’t have time to pick stocks.
10. Automate the process through regular investing.
11. Stay consistent for years.

Financial freedom is not built in one month. It is built through repeated boring decisions that compound over time.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Before we wrap up, here are some mistakes I see beginners make all the time.

1. Investing Before Budgeting

If you cannot manage a RM5,000 salary, earning RM10,000 may not solve the problem. Fix the system first.

2. Chasing High Returns Without Understanding Risk

A product promising high return is not automatically good. Always ask: what is the risk?

3. Putting Everything Into One Asset

Even if you love one stock, don’t let one asset decide your entire future. Diversify.

4. Confusing Trading With Investing

Trading is short-term and requires more monitoring. Investing is long-term and more suitable for most working adults. Know which game you are playing.

5. Waiting for the Perfect Time

The market will never feel perfect. The economy will always have problems. Interest rates will change. Elections will happen. Recessions will come and go.

Start small, learn, and build consistency.

Final Thought

Financial freedom for a 9-to-6 worker is not about quitting your job tomorrow.

It is about slowly building a financial system that gives you more control over your life.

Because one day, the goal is not just to work for money. The goal is to have your money quietly working for you too. Even while you sleep.

*T&Cs apply. All views expressed in this blog are the independent opinions of Ziet, which are not shared by Moomoo Securities Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (“Moomoo MY”). No content shall be considered financial advice or recommendation. Moomoo MY links are included in this post, through which referrals are made and I may receive certain commissions. Please contact Moomoo MY for more information.

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The post The 9-6 Financial Freedom Guide: How to Build Wealth While You’re Asleep appeared first on Ziet Invests.

Estimated reading time: 18 minutes

If most of your portfolio is in the US market, are you actually diversified?

For years, the strategy was simple, just buy the US S&P 500 and hold it. And to be fair, it works when the US is still home to the world’s largest companies. 

But today, there is a structural issue many investors overlook. The top 10 companies alone already make up nearly 40% of the entire index. 

This means your “diversified” portfolio may actually be heavily concentrated in a small group of tech giants.

​​And with geopolitical risks rising, that kind of concentration can backfire quickly. The IMF has already warned that shocks in one region can easily spill across global markets. 

You don’t need to leave the US, but you shouldn’t rely on it entirely.

Why Diversification Matters More Than Ever

When your portfolio is heavily tied to one market, everything moves together.

We saw this clearly in 2022, when the MAAG7 stocks dropped more than 20% after the Fed started tightening. Many investors reacted emotionally and sold at the worst time.

Yet those same companies are now trading above their previous highs. 

This highlights a key idea: Diversification is not about avoiding volatility. It’s about controlling how your portfolio reacts to it.

You cannot control market direction, but you can control your exposure.

The US Market: The Core, But Not Everything

The US market still plays a critical role in most portfolios.

It is home to companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia, businesses that influence not just the US, but global markets as a whole.

For most investors, ETFs provide the simplest way to gain exposure. They allow you to participate in broad market performance without relying on individual stock selection.

Instead of guessing what to buy, you can utilize platforms like Moomoo to help you in investing. Go into the ETF section, you can start by exploring broad index ETFs like S&P 500 or Nasdaq-based funds. With Moomoo, you can also invest worldwide, such as Bursa Malaysia, Singapore market and the US market.

A practical approach is to review the ETF’s profile and supporting documents, such as the fund fact sheet. These provide key insights into:

• the underlying holdings
• the level of concentration
• sector exposure
• and how the ETF fits within a broader portfolio

Understanding what an ETF actually holds is critical because even diversified products can still be heavily concentrated in certain sectors or companies.

Here’s how you can explore ETFs yourself on Moomoo app: 

Historically, this approach has worked. The S&P 500 has delivered an average annual return of almost 11% for the last 7 decades, even through crises, and in many cases, it ended up higher after one year. 

But there is a shift happening.

The US market is strong. But it is also increasingly concentrated.

That’s why the US should remain your foundation, not your entire portfolio.

Diversification Beyond Geography

Most investors think diversification means investing in different countries.

But that’s only half the story.

A properly diversified portfolio also considers what actually drives returns.

Different asset classes behave differently under different condition:

• Equities → growth
• Bonds → stability
• Commodities → inflation hedge

The idea here is simple. You don’t just want different countries, you want different sources of return.

There are other asset classes ETFs available to trade on Moomoo as below: 

Why Asia Is Becoming More Relevant

With geopolitical risks rising, many investors are starting to look beyond the US.

Across the world, businesses are actively repositioning themselves into regions that are more stable, more predictable, and less dependent on a single supply chain.

And a very big part of this shift is driven by the semiconductor industry.

With the rise of AI, demand for chips has surged. At the same time, companies are restructuring supply chains to reduce dependency on a single region.

That’s why more supply chains are moving into Asia. 

You can see this through capital flows. More FDI is moving into Asia, especially like Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. 

This is being driven by:

• data centre expansion
• manufacturing growth
• supply chain diversification

If you look at the broader market performance, indices like Japan’s Nikkei, Korea’s KOSPI, and Taiwan’s TAIEX, they have all shown strong momentum in recent years.

Asia’s Role in the Global Value Chain

But here’s what most investors miss. Asia is not just a region, it is a system.

Modern technology is not built in one place. It is assembled across multiple countries, each specialising in a specific part of the process.

At the higher end:

• Taiwan → advanced chip manufacturing
• Korea → memory and AI components
• Japan → materials and precision technologies

Further down:

• Southeast Asia → assembly, testing, packaging

This layered structure is not accidental. It reflects decades of specialisation.

And because of this: No single country controls the system, but every part of the system is essential.

When you invest in Asia, you are not just diversifying geographically, you are adding a completely different component that could hedge your downside risks, or even drive your portfolio further.

Understanding China Exposure

Before we go further into China, we should understand the Classification of China shares. 

In reality, there are multiple ways to gain exposure, and they behave very differently. 

In simple terms, A-shares are China from the inside while H-shares are China through a global lens. 

Hong Kong: The Gateway Market 

For investors looking to gain exposure to China, one market consistently stands out: Hong Kong.

Hong Kong sits at the intersection of China’s economy and global capital.

This positioning allows it to function as a bridge between local Chinese companies and international investors.

It’s the largest offshore RMB hub in the world, with around RMB 1 trillion held outside mainland China. A significant portion of global RMB transactions flows through Hong Kong. 

Many Chinese companies choose to list there because it gives them access to international investors, while still maintaining exposure to their core domestic business.

For investors, this creates a very practical advantage.

Instead of navigating the restrictions and complexity of mainland markets, you can gain exposure to China through a system that is already familiar.

At the same time, Hong Kong is one of the most liquid markets in Asia.

Because global institutions actively trade here, it is generally easier to enter or exit positions, as well as execute trades efficiently. 

Liquidity reduces friction and friction is one of the biggest hidden costs in investing.

There is also the question of transparency.

Compared to mainland exchanges, Hong Kong operates under a more internationally aligned regulatory framework. This makes it easier to:

• access information
• understand disclosures
• navigate the market

For most people, this is usually where they start when looking at China.

It becomes the most practical way to gain China exposure without dealing with unnecessary complexity.

China’s Domestic Market: A Different Driver

Yes, investing in China through Hong Kong is more efficient, but this is different from investing directly in China’s domestic market when both markets are driven by different structures and forces.

The first major difference lies in how each market is structured.

When investing through Hong Kong, exposure tends to be concentrated in:

• large internet platforms
• financial institutions such as banks
• property
• energy-related sectors

In contrast, the mainland A-share market offers broader exposure across:

• domestic consumption
• manufacturing
• industrial supply chains
• emerging sectors within China’s economy

This difference starts at the composition level.

In the Hong Kong market, you are looking at Chinese companies that are more exposed to global capital. These are usually larger, more established firms, and their prices move with global sentiment.

However, the behavior is different in the domestic A-share market. It reflects directly what’s happening inside China. For example,  domestic demand, policy changes, and local economic cycles tend to play a bigger role here.

Thus, the market doesn’t always move in sync with global markets. There are periods where global markets are weak, but China’s domestic market is moving on its own cycle.

From a portfolio perspective, the question is not just whether you invest in China, but how.

Different markets within China are driven by different forces, offering a set of return drivers that are not present in the US or other developed markets.

While A-shares offer direct access to China’s domestic economy, they are not always the easiest market for international investors to access.

This is where Hong Kong becomes particularly useful.

Instead of entering mainland markets directly, many investors choose to gain exposure through Hong Kong-listed ETFs. 

This approach provides:

• simpler access
• familiar regulatory structures
• greater liquidity

You can think of Hong Kong as your entry point. It allows you to get exposure in a more structured way, without adding too much complexity at the start. For most investors, especially beginners, this approach tends to be easier to manage.

If you are still evaluating the China market, structured research tools like Moomoo AI can help you narrow down your approach.

For example, instead of analysing everything manually, you can focus on key questions such as:

• What are the main drivers of the China stock market today?
• Which ETFs provide exposure to A-shares?

This allows you to understand the market more efficiently and make more informed decisions.

Steps to use Moomoo AI: 

Singapore: Stability Over Growth

Not every market in a portfolio needs to deliver high growth.

Some markets play a different role and Singapore is a good example of that.

Compared to markets like the US or China, Singapore is not designed to be a high-growth engine. Instead, it offers something equally important: stability and income consistency. 

Over the past decade, it has consistently delivered relatively high dividend yields compared to many other markets.

If you look at the Singapore market more closely, this becomes clear.

The Straits Times Index (STI), which tracks the top 30 companies listed on the Singapore Exchange. A lot of these are established businesses: 

• Banks
• Real estate 
• Infrastructure-related companies 

These are not companies that are trying to become the next Nvidia or Tesla. But they generate steady cash flow and tend to distribute a significant portion of it back to investors through dividends.

Singapore has also positioned itself as a regional financial hub, connecting capital flows across Asia, especially into Southeast Asia’s growing economies and tech ecosystems.

When you invest in Singapore, you are not just investing in a local economy. You are also gaining exposure to its role as a connector within the region.

From a portfolio perspective, Singapore serves a balancing function.

Growth-focused markets tend to be more volatile. While they can generate higher returns, they also come with larger swings.

Singapore helps offset this by providing:

• more stable performance
• consistent dividend income
• lower volatility compared to growth-heavy markets

Returns matter, but so does the ability to stay invested.

A portfolio that fluctuates too much can be difficult to hold, especially for newer investors. This is often what leads to emotional decisions at the wrong time.

Singapore addresses this problem.

It may not deliver explosive growth, but it improves portfolio stability, making it easier to stay invested over the long term.

And in investing, that consistency often matters more than chasing the highest returns.

How to Build a Diversified Portfolio

When it comes to ETFs, many investors tend to overcomplicate the process.

The problem is not a lack of understanding, it’s execution. Once you start exploring different markets, sectors, and assets classes, it can quickly become overwhelming. 

A more practical approach is to simplify the process by starting with a structured framework. 

And this is where Moomoo fits naturally into the process. Instead of randomly picking ETFs, begin by looking at broad ETF pages.

But if you want to go deeper, the next step is to narrow your choices. Rather than manually going through dozens of ETFs, use the ETF filter tool to align selection with your financial goals and risk tolerance. There are more than 50 filters available to fine-tune your search. Whether it’s a specific sector, performance level, or risk tolerance, you can select what best suits your needs. 

For example, if you are looking for Hong Kong stable income index ETFs, you can filter them using screener as below: 

When you are narrowing down your shortlist, comparison becomes critical. 

Instead of evaluating ETFs in isolation, Moomoo allows you to compare up to 6 symbols ETFs’ side by side based on: 

• historical performance
• expense ratio
• top 10 holdings
• Risk exposure  

Here’s how you can compare the ETFs from your screener: 

Two ETFs may track similar markets, but their underlying composition and cost structure can lead to very different outcomes.

And since you’re already here, I’ve actually prepared the comparison table for you. 

Once you have selected an ETF, you can simply follow the steps to trade on your Moomoo account: 

Trying to time the market is difficult and often counterproductive.

A more sustainable strategy is Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA), investing a fixed amount regularly over time.

This approach:

• reduces emotional decision-making
• smooths entry points
• builds long-term discipline

And Moomoo’s RSP (Regular Savings Plan) allows you to automate this process. 

For example, if you want to invest in VOO ETF every 1st of the month, you can refer below to create a plan on Moomoo: 

In this way, you don’t need to find the perfect entry point, and Moomoo helps you to stay consistent. 

How to Achieve True Portfolio Diversification with Trading Platform Moomoo

Moomoo is the ideal trading platform for portfolio diversification because it provides seamless, low-cost access to multiple global markets, including the US, Malaysia (Bursa Malaysia), and Hong Kong, all within a single integrated account. By combining advanced AI-driven analytical tools with institutional-grade market data, Moomoo enables investors to balance high-growth US tech stocks with stable, local dividend-yielding assets, effectively mitigating geographical and currency risks.

Building a resilient investment strategy that utilizes a multi-asset trading platform is essential. Here is how Moomoo Malaysia empowers your diversification journey:

• Multi-Market Access: While the US market offers growth, Moomoo Malaysia lets you instantly pivot to Bursa Malaysia for local REITs or to the Hong Kong market for China-centric exposure. This cross-border capability is the foundation of geographical diversification.
• Asset Class Variety: Diversification goes beyond stocks. On Moomoo, you can trade ETFs, REITs, and Structured Warrants. For instance, adding Gold ETFs through Moomoo can act as a hedge against Ringgit volatility, a strategy highly relevant to Malaysian investors.
• Institutional-Level Analytical Tools: Moomoo’s Visualized Financials and Stock Compare tools allow you to analyze correlations between different assets. By understanding how your US AI stocks move relative to Malaysian bank stocks, you can ensure your portfolio is truly diversified rather than merely holding multiple similar assets.
• Fractional Shares & Low Fees: Diversification often requires significant capital, but Moomoo’s competitive fee structure and fractional-share feature (for US markets) mean you can spread smaller amounts of capital across a wider range of companies, optimizing your risk-reward ratio without incurring high overhead costs.

By choosing Moomoo as your primary trading platform, you gain the technological edge needed to manage a sophisticated, diversified portfolio that is built to withstand global market shifts.

Final Thought

If you zoom out, the takeaway is simple. Markets don’t move together forever. Different regions perform at different times, and that’s exactly what creates opportunity. 

This is why diversification matters now more than ever. Not because we can predict what’s going to happen, but because we can build a portfolio that is prepared for it. 

At the same time, global momentum is gradually shifting. Asia is becoming more relevant, not overnight but through supply chains, capital flows and the growth of new industries. 

The goal is not to chase what is already performing. It is to position yourself for where the structure is shifting.

You don’t need to own everything. You just need the right mix.

If you still do not have a Moomoo account yet, click here to sign up for an account by using my exclusive code “ZIET11” to unlock extra rewards.

And if you prefer a visual breakdown, you can also refer to the video version of this guide. Thank you!

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The post Why Investing Only in the US Market Is No Longer Enough appeared first on Ziet Invests.

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Moomoo is probably one of the most talked about investing platforms in Malaysia right now.

If you’ve been investing or even just thinking about investing, chances are you’ve already seen their ads, their free Apple share promotions, or maybe even heard your friends talking about it.

But is Moomoo actually good or is it just popular because of the rewards?

Almost every broker is competing on fees now. Some offer zero commission. Some offer sign-up rewards. Some offer US stocks, Malaysia stocks, and even cash management products. So the real question is not just whether Moomoo is cheap anymore.

In this article, let’s break down what Moomoo offers today, what I like, who should use it, and whether I think it is still worth considering for Malaysian investors.

What is Moomoo?

To give you a quick context, Moomoo is a stock brokerage platform under Futu Holdings, a company listed on the US NASDAQ exchange.

Globally, Moomoo has grown into a platform serving 29 million users across major markets including the US, Singapore, Australia, Japan, Canada and Malaysia with USD $1.9 trillion annual trading volume.

Here in Malaysia, Moomoo operates under the regulation of the Securities Commission Malaysia and has already crossed over 1 million users locally, which is honestly quite impressive considering they only officially entered Malaysia not too long ago.

Another important point is investor protection.

If you invest through Moomoo Malaysia, your assets are also protected by the Capital Market Compensation Fund (CMC Fund) for up to RM100,000. This gives investors an additional layer of protection in the event of certain broker-related issues.

But of course, this does not mean your investments cannot go down.

If you buy a stock and the stock price drops, that is still your investment risk. The protection is more about broker-related defaults, not market losses.

New User Sign Up Rewards

If you haven’t signed up yet, Moomoo does offer attractive sign-up rewards for new users.

Based on the current campaign details provided, new users may receive free Apple shares with deposits starting from RM3000, and total rewards can go up to RM1800.

And if you’re planning to check it out, you can use my exclusive code: ‘ZIET11’. This may unlock extra rewards when you deposit, depending on the ongoing campaign.

Moomoo’s Local Presence

Since 2025, Moomoo Malaysia is no longer just an online platform. They have also started building a real physical presence in Malaysia.

They now have Moomoo stores at locations like KL Eco City, One Utama and Pavilion Bukit Jalil. Not everyone is comfortable putting money into an app just because the interface looks nice. Some people still want to see a real office, talk to real people, and get basic questions answered face-to-face.

So instead of being purely digital, Moomoo is moving towards a hybrid model.

You can invest through the app, learn online, and still walk into a physical store to ask questions when you need support. For beginners, I think this is a plus point.

Research Tools & Market Data

Access to global markets has become increasingly accessible for retail investors over the past few years. However, access alone does not necessarily translate into better investment outcomes.

A significant portion of underperformance is not due to lack of opportunity, but rather due to poor decision-making – often driven by limited information, overreliance on headlines or even reactive trading behaviour. In this context, the role of research tools becomes critical.

Moomoo positions itself not just as a trading platform, but as an integrated research environment. The platform incorporates a range of data-driven tools designed to help investors analyse securities, monitor market developments, and contextualise price movements across different asset classes and regions.

• Order Book Level 2 Market Data: Market depth where buyers and sellers are placing their orders across different price levels in real time. The more you train yourself to look at the price behind the stock, the less likely you are to buy purely because of hype.

Economic Calendar: Upcoming events like inflation data, interest rate decisions and other key data releases that may move the market. For Malaysian investors, this matters because even if we are sitting in Malaysia, our US investments are still affected by US economic data.

• Institutional Tracker: Monitor what large institutions are holding or positioning themselves in. This may include global institutions like Vanguard, and local institutions like EPF or KWAP. For retail investors, this can be useful because institutions usually have research teams, analysts and long-term portfolio strategies.

• Insights Page: Monitor how experienced investors invest individually. You can directly mirror or follow their trades directly from there. It can help you discover ideas and understand where big money may be positioned. But your final decision still needs to be based on your own research, risk tolerance and investment goals.

• Moomoo Community: This is a place where users share trade ideas, insights and market sentiments. If you want, you can also follow my profile. I do share updates on global news and, more importantly, how these events may affect different sectors and stocks.

The Rise of Moomoo AI

Now, everything we talked about earlier – data, charts, news, institutional tracking, those are all tools. But let’s be honest. Most platforms give you access to the market, but not every platform helps you understand the market.

This is where Moomoo AI becomes interesting. For me, Moomoo AI is useful when something suddenly happens in the market and I just want a quick first understanding.

Instead of spending time digging through multiple articles, announcements, financial statements, and community posts, you can ask Moomoo AI for a quick breakdown.

• What happened?
• Why is the market reacting this way?
• What are the key things investors are watching?

Another practical point is that Moomoo AI supports multiple languages including English, Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese. For Malaysian investors, that actually matters because not everyone is equally comfortable reading financial content in English.

Multiple Markets

Once you start to understand the market better, the next step is putting that knowledge into action. And this is where Moomoo’s market access becomes useful.

Through Moomoo Malaysia, investors can access multiple markets including:

• Malaysia
• United States
• Singapore
• Hong Kong
• China

And depending on your risk level, Moomoo offers products ranging from safer cash management products like money market funds, all the way to higher-risk instruments like stocks, IPOs, options and futures.

So whether you prefer to play it safe or you’re more comfortable taking higher risk, you can structure your portfolio based on what makes sense for you.

Product Expansion

Since my last review, Moomoo has expanded beyond just simple stock trading.

Moomoo now offers options trading. And for those who are new, options are more advanced instruments.

Instead of only making money when a stock goes up, options allow you to structure trades based on different scenarios. You can use call options, put options, and different strategies depending on whether you are bullish, bearish, or expecting volatility.

But options are not beginner-friendly. They involve leverage, time decay, margin, and can result in significant losses if you don’t understand what you’re doing.

However, the good thing is Moomoo does provide built-in strategy and analysis tools, which can help users understand different option setups. This is how you can explore it yourself: 

But options should only be used by investors who have already spent time learning how they work. If you are still struggling to understand normal stocks and ETFs, don’t rush into options just because the app offers it.

Moomoo also offers futures trading. Futures are different from normal investing because you are trading based on the price movement of an underlying asset. It is not for everyone. But for investors or traders who understand how it works, it gives another way to participate in market movements.

IPO Applications & Financing

Moomoo also lets users apply for IPOs directly through the app, which makes the process much easier compared to more traditional methods.

But just to set expectations, most popular IPOs are heavily oversubscribed. So even if you apply, there is always a chance that you may only get a small allocation or none at all.

One thing Moomoo has introduced is IPO financing of up to 4x. This means if you have RM1,000 capital, you may be able to apply for up to RM4,000 worth of IPO shares.

And this may improve your chances of getting some allocation, but it does not guarantee anything.

Nominee CDS Account

Now, one thing worth understanding is how shares are held. Like many digital brokers, Moomoo uses a nominee CDS account structure.

For most retail investors, a nominee CDS account is honestly more than enough. But if you are someone who cares deeply about AGM attendance, direct voting rights, or holding shares directly under your own name, then this is something you should consider.

Cash Plus & SmartSave

You may have idle cash sitting in your brokerage account while waiting for opportunities and this is where Moomoo Cash Plus comes in. Cash Plus offers around 3.5% per year, with boosted rates of up to 6% for new users depending on promotion.

So instead of jumping straight into stocks, you can park your money there to invest in short term and high quality assets from Maybank, UOB and even Eastspring to earn some returns and get comfortable with how everything works.

It’s generally very low risk, so it’s a comfortable starting point. Another thing is it also gives you instant buying power. So your funds can start working immediately, while still being available when you are ready to invest.

And once you are ready, you don’t need to have a large amount to get started. You can also just buy a small portion of a stock with fractional shares. Here’s how you can explore it yourself: 

But if you have trouble staying consistent with your investment, there’s also a Regular Savings Plan. You can start at the minimum of USD 5, set how often you would like to invest, and adjust it anytime depending on your situation. Here’s how: 

Who Should Use Moomoo?

In my opinion, Moomoo is suitable for:

• Beginner investors who want an easy way to start
• Malaysian investors who want access to US stocks and ETFs
• Investors who want Bursa Malaysia and global markets in one app
• Users who like having research tools and market data
• People who want a more modern brokerage experience
• Investors who want to park idle cash through Cash Plus
• Users who appreciate physical support through Moomoo stores

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Using Moomoo

1. Treating the App Like a Casino

Because Moomoo has real-time data, charts and community discussions, it can feel exciting. But investing should not feel like gambling. If you constantly buy and sell based on short-term price movements, you may end up paying more fees, making emotional decisions, and underperforming a simple long-term strategy.

2. Ignoring Exchange Rates

For Malaysian investors, MYR to USD conversion can affect your returns. Even if your stock performs well, currency movements can impact your final MYR return. This is not necessarily bad, but you need to understand it.

3. Buying Stocks Just Because They Are Trending

Moomoo gives access to popular stocks, trending lists, and market discussions. But popularity does not equal quality. Before buying any stock, ask:

• Does the company make money?
• Is revenue growing?
• Is the valuation reasonable?
• What are the risks?
• Would I still buy it if nobody was talking about it?
  

4. Not Understanding Tax Implications

For Malaysians investing in US stocks, tax matters can include dividend withholding tax and potential estate tax considerations. This does not mean you should avoid US investments entirely, but you should understand the basic implications before investing a large amount. You can check out my video here for full understanding.

Final Thought

Moomoo is still worth considering, especially if you are a Malaysian investor who wants a modern, regulated, multi-market brokerage platform with strong research tools.

So if you’re planning to start investing or looking for a brokerage that gives you access to Malaysia and global markets, Moomoo is definitely one of the platforms you can consider.

If you’re interested, check it out before the campaign ends with my exclusive code ‘ziet11’! If you prefer a video version of this article, I have made a video covering the exact same thing – do check it out here! Thanks for reading!

*T&Cs apply. All views expressed in this blog are the independent opinions of Ziet, which are not shared by Moomoo Securities Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (“Moomoo MY”). No content shall be considered financial advice or recommendation. Moomoo MY links are included in this post, through which referrals are made and I may receive certain commissions. Please contact Moomoo MY for more information.

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The post Moomoo Malaysia Review 2026: Is It Still Worth Using for Malaysians? appeared first on Ziet Invests.