The Securities Commission has updated its Investor Alert List to include six new entries, with the most prominent among them being the Pelham Blue Fund, a popular investment discussion group which provides regular updates on local stock market movements via its Telegram and Twitter accounts.

According to the SC, the group running the Pelham Blue Fund channel has been found to be “carrying out unlicensed capital market activities of providing investment advice”. Its website and Twitter pages have been taken down, while its Telegram channel has stopped posting updates since 12.40pm today.

Over the past year, the Pelham Blue Fund Twitter page has grown popular among young Malaysians thanks to its mix of combining local stock market price updates with jokes, popular memes, and timely references to local events. Meanwhile, its Telegram channel posts regular updates on local stock market price movements, and it also has a Market Insights private Telegram group as well as a blog.

The SC has regularly updated its Investor Alert List to include more and more stock investment “gurus”, a phenomenon that has grown in tandem with the increase in retail investors in Malaysia since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. These “gurus” usually provide a buy call on a specific stock with some research and a target price, but already build a position on that stock before posting them to their followers – a strategy known as “front-running”. When the followers buy into the stock, these “gurus” then sell their positions, effectively profiting from their influence.

In recent times, the SC has also included Remitano and Binance into its Investor Alert List as they are operating without authorisation from the SC (so far, only three digital asset exchanges (DAX) have been approved to operate in Malaysia: Luno, Tokenize, and Sinegy). It also added Trading View, a popular charting platform, to its list in March.

The SC continues to advise local retail investors to conduct their own research before making an investment decision, and not rely on advice from unlicensed individuals.

(Source: Securities Commission (Twitter))

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• Investment Guru
• Investor Alert List
• Pelham Blue Fund
• Securities Commission
• Securities Commission Investor Alert List