KLSE laggards against global and regional bourses in 2009

Despite a worldwide fear of recession in 2009, in fact many stock markets perform pretty well in the year, and several even achieved more than 100% gain!

World's top 10 best performing stock markets (from 30 Dec 2008 - 21 Dec 2009):

• Brazil Bovespa Stock Index (+132%)
• Russian RTS Index (+125%)
• Peru Lima General Index (+116%)
• Jakarta Composite Index (+114%)
• Micex Index - Moscow (+113%)
• Sri Langka Colombo All Share Index (+113%)
• OBX Stock Index - Norway (+101%)
• PFTS Index - Ukraine (+94%)
• ISE National 100 Index - Istanbul (+90%)
• Chile Stock Market Select (+87%)

Asia-Pacific's top 10 best performing stock markets (from 30 Dec 2008 - 21 Dec 2009):

• Jakarta Composite Index (+114%)
• Sri Langka Colombo All Share Index (+113%)
• Taiwan TAIEX Index (+72%)
• Shanghai SE Composite Index (+70%)
• Stock Exchange of Thailand Index (+66%)
• Phillipine SE Index (+64%)
• Straits Times Index - Singapore (+61%)
• Kospi Index - South Korea (+56%)
• Hang Seng Index - Hong Kong (+47%)
• NZX 50 Index - New Zealand (+44%)

Meanwhile, Malaysia FBM KLCI Index only gained by 42.42% at the same period of time, falling behind its neighouring Indonesia, Thailand, Phillipine and Singapore markets!

This is definitely not a good sign to Malaysia, especially when the KLSE a.k.a. Bursa Malaysia daily trading value and trading volume are both fallen below the billion level now!

Has KLSE become an abandoned market from investors? Will Malaysia be left over behind the global economic rebound wave? Does the government has any plan and measure to regain investors' confidence?

* Source of the above data are from the "2009 in Numbers" report in The Edge weekly.