News

Daily Markets Briefing: STI down 0.66%

Don't expect any boost from Wall Street today.

Scoot, Tigerair to operate under one brand

The two will be integrated on July 25.

Daily Briefing: Land hunger revives bloc sales; Supermarket spending continues to grow

And more Singapore construction firms is set to venture overseas. From Bloomberg via Yahoo!: Chalk up another sign Singapore’s housing market is recovering: redevelopment deals are back. After slowing to a trickle the past three years as housing prices fell, four redevelopment deals -- where a group of owners band together to sell entire apartment blocks at a hefty premium -- have been struck already this year, with a combined value of S$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion). The process, also known as “en-bloc” sales, allows developers to knock down and rebuild in a city where new residential land sales are tightly controlled by the government. From Shares Investment via Yahoo!: Amid a challenging economic outlook for 2017, Singaporeans could see tougher times ahead. In February 2017, Singapore’s Department of Statistics reported that families across all income groups saw their earnings rise at a slower growth rate for 2016, as compared to the previous year. A month later, a survey by recruiting company, Hays, revealed that about 46 percent of Singaporean employers expect to give salary increases of between three and six percent, down from 52 percent during the last salary review period. From PropertyGuru: The number of overseas projects secured by local contractors and consultants doubled from 289 projects in 2014 to 594 in 2015, showed the Building and Construction Authority’s (BCA) Construction Export Survey 2016. This comes as more Singapore firms ventured overseas in 2015 at 62 consultancy firms and 38 contractors, up from 26 consultancy firms and 22 contractors during the previous year. Singapore construction firms mostly expanded into India, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and UAE. Despite the rise in overseas construction projects, the total value of overseas contracts secured remained stable at S$1.74 billion in 2015.  

Singapore bond issuance slumps 45.8% to US$4.5b

UOB rose as the most active borrower in terms of bond proceeds.

Developer sales shrink 34.3% in May

But sales for the first five months soar 61%. Private homes sold by developers last month shrunk by 34.3% to 1,024 units compared to April when there was a total of 1,558 units sold. According to PropNex, while the figure in May might have taken a dip compared to the previous month due to the lack of new major launches, it still reflects the positive market sentiments in the first half of 2017. On a yearly basis, total units sold sits at 7,555, 61% up from 4,915 units in the first five months of 2016. PropNex Realty CEO Ismail Gafoor commented, “Like what we witnessed in April, consumers are continuing to pick up units nearing TOP dates. This is evident in the results of the five best-performing projects of this month. Especially for Parc Riviera and Sol Acres EC which have continued to sell well in the first five months of 2017.”  

Will exports still provide a boost to Singapore's economy?

Analysts have lowered their export growth forecast. Singapore's export strength has been giving a fillip to its economy after emerging from the YoY contraction in November 2016. To recall, Singapore's non-oil domestic exports (NODX) momentum surged in 1Q17. Specifically, NODX value rose by +15.2% YoY in 1Q17, a report by Morgan Stanley said. However, looking at the prospects for the sector, economists and analysts surveyed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore lowered their growth forecast for NODX to 5.6%, down from the 6.1% seen last year. "There have been questions on whether the export recovery could be sustained after April NODX saw a reversal from the previous strong growth and contracted unexpectedly," Morgan Stanley said. It furthered, "Given MS global macro team’s view that the global expansion is now on a surer footing,as it is being driven by a recovery in private sector demand, we think the rising global tide will help to lift Singapore’s exporters and the weak NODX print in April is likely an aberration."  

Singapore M&A activity drops 20.3% to US$22.4b

It’s Singapore’s slowest first half period for deal making activity since 2013.

4 things to look out for in SingPost

The results from the TradeGlobal acquisition review is one.

Daily Markets Briefing: STI down 0.13%

Expect markets to be fairly cautious today.

Chart of the Day: 1,983 HDB flats resold in May

This is an 8.1% increase from the previous month.

SPH-Kajima JV emerges as top bidder for Upper Serangoon Road site

Their subsidiaries bid $1.13b for the mixed development site.

Mid-tier residential segment lead rebound in resale prices

CCR and RCR prices rose 1.1%. Residential resale prices managed to rebound in May, strongly led by the high-end and mid-tier segments, as resale prices in the core central region (CCR) and rest of central region (RCR) rose 1.1% MoM, while mass market resale prices (outside central region or OCR) dipped 0.4% MoM. According to OCBC Investment Research, transaction volumes similarly improved in May with 1,235 non-landed private homes sold – up 17.4% MoM over April 2017 and by a whopping 57.7% YoY over May 2016. "Through our channel checks, buyer sentiments have clearly improved after the latest tweaks to the property curbs in March 2017 where some measures relating to the SSD and the TDSR were relaxed," it said. It furthered, "We believe these changes were, on a net basis, supportive of the physical market and continue to forecast for general home prices to reach an inflection point by 2018."  

Why investors may find Singapore's specialist clinic chains risky

As it turns out, asset-light-model is still a new concept.

Singapore's economic growth forecast raised to 2.5%

It will be led by the surge in manufacturing growth.