Econometric Analysis on the Impact of Macroeconomic Variables toward Financial Performance: A Case of Malaysian Public Listed Logistics Companies

摘要

The primary concern of this study is to analyse the impact against macroeconomic variables upon the financial performance, particularly in the case of public listed logistics companies in Malaysia. This study incorporated five macroeconomic variables and four proxies of financial performance. The macroeconomic variables selected are gross domestic product (GDP), total trade (XM), foreign direct investment (FDI), inflation rate (INF), and interest rate (INT). This study is extended to the usage of ratio analysis to predict financial performance in relation to the changes upon macroeconomic variables. As such, this study selected four (4) ratios as proxies to financial performance, which is Operating Profit Margin (OPM), Net Profit Margin (NPM), Return on Asset (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE). The findings of this study may appear non-controversial to some, but it resulted in the following important consensus; (1) GDP is found to be highly impacting NPM and least of ROA, (2) XM has high positive impact on OPM and least on ROE, (3) FDI appear to have insignificant impact towards NPM, and (4) INF and INT show similar negative impact on financial performance, precisely highly negative on OPM and least on ROA. Such findings also conform to the local logistic industry settings, specifically in regards to public listed logistics companies in relation to its financial performance.