Analyzing FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI using minimum spanning tree and betweenness centrality during state elections

• Main Authors: Fairuz, Firuz Aliah, Bahaludin, Hafizah
• Format: Proceeding Paper
• Language: English
• Published: Department of Computational & Theoretical Sciences, Kulliyyah of Science, IIUM 2024
• Subjects: QA Mathematics
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/111941/1/111941_Analyzing%20FTSE%20Bursa%20Malaysia.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/111941/
• Institution: Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

This study investigates the impact of the Malaysian state elections held on 12 August 2023, across Selangor, Kelantan, Terengganu, Negeri Sembilan, Kedah, and Penang, on FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI. While previous research has established a link between election uncertainty and increased market volatility, this study would like to explore deeper how elections affect stock correlations. Using the methodology of minimum spanning tree (MST) and betweenness centrality, the research constructs financial networks to identify companies that act as mediators. The focus is on the one month before and one month after state elections, aiming to offer investors valuable insight into stock market stability during this politically important period. The study produced a noteworthy finding: RHBC maintained its dominance before and after the elections, but the level of dominance was decreasing. However, this study has the limitation of data since the state election was just held so recently. Thus, to provide more reliable results, we propose that the data period be extended for future research.