Dear readers,

Asian markets have fallen quite a bit in the past one month. For example, Hang Seng has fallen close to 2,900 points since touching a high of 30,280 on 15 Apr to trade 27,391 which is the low last seen in January.

STI has fallen almost 250 points from an intraday high of 3,415 on 29 Apr to close 3,165 today.

Looking at the indices may be deceiving as many shares have fallen a lot. For example, based on Table 1 below, most stocks have fallen at least 10%, with Sembmarine tumbling almost 17% in less than a month.

Table 1: % fall since 29 Apr vis-à-vis indices

Source: Ernest’s compilations

Note: The calculation in the % chg does not exclude dividends distributed during the above comparison period. I.e. If UOB’s $0.70 / share dividend is included, the % chg will be lesser. It is noteworthy that