Market Snapshot
Singapore stocks rose this week, with the STI up 0.37% as China pledged further monetary easing to brace itself for more trade tensions with the United States.
Top Glove soared 7.5%; $YZJ Shipbldg(BS6.SI) rallied 7%; Singtel rose 3.6%.
Market News
Top Glove Trims Attributable Loss in Fiscal 2024
Top Glove (SGX:BVA) reported a lower loss attributable to owners of the parent for the year ended Aug. 31 of 64.9 million ringgit, compared to 925.2 million ringgit a year earlier, a filing with the Singapore Exchange said on Wednesday.
Basic loss per share came in at 0.008 ringgit compared with 0.116 ringgit a year earlier. Revenue rose to 2.51 billion ringgit from 2.26 billion ringgit in the year-ago period, mainly due to increased sales volume.
Singapore’s Resident Employment Rebounds in Q3
Resident employment in Singapore rose by 4,000 in the third quarter of 2024, reversing from a seasonal decline in Q2, driven by strong hiring in outward-oriented sectors such as information and communications, professional services and financial services.
Non-resident employment rose by 18,200, primarily due to the hiring of work permit holders in construction and manufacturing, based on the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) quarterly Labour Market Report released on Monday (Dec 9).
Employment among S Pass holders also rose in Q3 after declines in the previous two quarters, with financial services and health and social services contributing to this growth.
Singapore’s Cautious Wealth Fund Takes More Private Markets Risk
After Sam Bankman-Fried started the FTX cryptocurrency exchange in 2019, his company spent countless hours trying to woo GIC Pte Ltd., Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. As FTX worked back channels via power brokers and attempted to land introductions from other investors, GIC had four opportunities to buy in, according to people familiar with the matter.
Although storied venture capital firms such as Sequoia Capital, as well as the massive Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and fellow Singapore state-owned investor Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd., eventually backed the flashy startup, GIC decided to do its own homework. One of its Singaporean analysts noticed FTX’s money seemed to flow through a separate entity called Alameda Research. Many red flags later, a GIC executive sent around a strongly worded letter declaring it a fraud and the work of a con man, two of the people say. The checkbook was closed, well ahead of FTX’s dramatic demise.
Singapore Economists See Growth of 3.6% in 2024, Monetary Policy Unchanged in January
Singapore's economy will grow 3.6% this year, up from a previous forecast of 2.6% expansion, while monetary policy settings are expected to remain unchanged at an upcoming review in January, a survey by the central bank showed on Wednesday.
The median forecast of 25 economists surveyed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore expect growth of 3.1% in the final quarter of 2024 and 2.6% growth for the whole of 2025.
Last month, the trade ministry raised its GDP growth forecast for 2024 to 3.5% from a previous range of 2.0% to 3.0%, after third-quarter growth surpassed estimates at 5.4%.
A majority of economists surveyed expect the MAS to maintain its current monetary policy in its quarterly reviews in January, April and July.