- Last week the STI added 2.1%, again led by Banks. Friday’s debutants, SLB Development and Asia Healthcare Specialists both finished the session firmer and amongst the 20 most active stocks by turnover.
- Earnings Season will pick up a notch from last week, with a dozen REITs expected to report for the March 2018 quarter. This will include STI constituents Ascendas REIT, CapitaLand Commercial Trust, and on Wednesday, Venture Corporation reports.
- Last week, Crude Oil advanced to a high of US$69.56/bbl, to Dec 2014 highs. The inflationary concerns of higher oil prices have seen US 10-year Treasury yields return above 2.95%, levels last seen in early Feb following inflationary concerns from wage growth.
Earnings Season will pick up a notch from last week, with a dozen REITs expected to report financials for the March 2018 quarter. This will include STI constituents Ascendas REIT, CapitaLand Commercial Trust, and on Wednesday Venture Corporation reports. Seven STI constituents will also go ex-dividend in the course of the week. For more details click
here
On the global macro front, US Treasury Yields are higher across the curve. The
US 10 year Treasury yields ended Friday at 2.96%. This level was last seen in the first week of February. In that instance, the higher yield was driven the monthly gauge of average hourly earnings growth creating inflation concerns. However this time around, the strength in the US 10 year Treasury yields has coincided with the inflationary ramifications of higher commodity prices.
Crude Oil futures traded as high as US$69.56/bbl on Thursday evening, which represents a 15% gain from the end of 2017 price of US$60.36/bbl. In early Monday trading Crude Oil futures were trading at US$68.10. The price of Crude oil was last above $67.00/bbl in December 2014.
The next
Fed Open Market Committee meeting is scheduled next week on 1 to 2 May.
As illustrated below the
SGX MOG Index has been more volatile than the
Straits Times Index (STI) in the 2018 year thus far. Nevertheless, the SGX MOG Index is up some 10.1% from its 4 April lows. The
SGX MOG Index includes a 12% weightage to Singapore’s largest capitalised upstream oil and gas exploration and production play,
KrisEnergy. KrisEnergy was amongst the five strongest stocks of the FTSE ST Small Cap Index last week, in addition to trading more than twice its average volume for the week.
Source: Bloomberg & SGX StockFacts (Data as of 20 April 2018)
Last week the STI gained 2.1%, bringing the year-to-date total return to 5.4%.
- United Overseas Bank, Singapore Press Holdings, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, Keppel Corp and DBS Group Holdings led the STI higher, with the five stocks averaging 4.8% gains. The five least performing stocks averaged a 3.9% decline, and were led by Venture Corp which declined 14.3%, paring its year-to-date total return to 23.5%.
- On Friday, two debutants, SLB Development and Asian Healthcare Specialists finished the day ranked within the 20 most active stocks by turnover. These two stocks both listed on Catalist. SLB Development ended the session up 8.7% from its initial issue price, whilst Asian Healthcare Specialists ended the session up 47.8%.
- SLB Development undertakes small to large scale residential developments, mixed-used projects, as well as industrial and commercial developments and is a spin-off from Mainboard-listed Lian Beng Group, one of Singapore's major home-grown building and construction groups. For more information click here.
- Asia Healthcare Specialists is a group of orthopaedic specialists who provide a wide spectrum of general and subspecialised treatments, including orthopaedic, trauma and sports services. For more information click here.
By comparison to the STI’s total return of 5.4%, which assumes dividends are reinvested, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index has declined 1.0% by the same measure, which is similar to the average decline of the benchmarks of the regional financial centres. Looking back further to a period of 10 years, however the STI total return is more aligned with the long term performance of the MSCI Asia Pacific Index with the STI at 57.7% and the MSCI Asia Pacific Index at 56.3%.
The recent performances of the STI and STI Reserve List are tabled below. To see more details on each stock, click in SGX StockFacts, click on the stock name.
SGD equivalents shown for Jardine Matheson Holdings, Jardine Strategic Holdings, Hongkong Land Holdings and Hutchison Port Hldgs Trust traded in USD. Source: SGX StockFacts & Bloomberg (Data as of 20 April 2018).
Source: Bloomberg & SGX StockFacts (Data as of 20 April 2018)
