2017 Review
Many people had cited 2017 as a strong bull market year; for the Straits Times Index (STI), which is considered a proxy for the local equity market, it opened at 2,887 points on the first trading day of 2017 and closed at 3,402 points1 at the last trading day of the year, giving it a 17.8% rise.
In fact, we do see a bull of various degrees across other asset classes as well; for REITs, the FTSE ST REITs index showed an increase from 711.54 points to 855.88 points2, a whopping 20.3%. On the gold front, it rose from USD 1,150.00 to USD 1,306.303throughout the course of 2017, a 13.6% improvement (barring forex gain/loss). Even for local bonds, using the Thomson Reuters/SGX Singapore Fixed Income (TR/SGX SFI) index, it rose 6 points from 124.5 to ...
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