To The Moon

The STI $Straits Times Index(STI.SI)$ ended April with a 1.3% total return, bringing its total return for the four months ending April to 2.1%.

During April, institutions were net sellers of Singapore stocks, with S$261 million of net institutional outflows. This was the least amount of monthly net institutional outflows since net inflows were booked in November 2022. The month of April also saw the STI produce its narrowest percentage trading range since February 2015, which coincided with comparatively less swings in the 10-year US Treasury Note yields.

Coincidentally, the four-month return of the STI at 2.1% came in at the midpoint between the SGD total returns of the FTSE Asia Pacific Index at 3.3% and FTSE ASEAN All-Share Index at 0.8%.

While Asia Pacific has lagged the global stock market over the past four months, the S-REIT Sector as gauged by the iEdge S-REIT Index marginally outpaced global REITs.

At the same time the trio of Singapore Banks, DBS Group Holdings $DBS GROUP HOLDINGS LTD(D05.SI)$ , Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation $OVERSEA-CHINESE BANKING CORP(O39.SI)$ and United Overseas Bank $UNITED OVERSEAS BANK LIMITED(U11.SI)$ have also marginally outpaced global peers over the past four months, averaging a 0.9% decline in total return, compared to the 4% decline for the 7-stock Dow Jones Large Cap Bank Index and 18% decline for the 95-stock S&P 500 Select Industry Index.

The 35% average total returns for the trio of STI banks since the end of 2019 was also a major contributing factor in the 15.5% of the STI over the past 40 months. The FTSE All-World Index is weighed 23% to the Technology Sector, which despite declines in 2022, still ranked as the strongest performing global sectors from the end of 2019 through to 28 April, 2023.

By comparison, Singapore’s three most traded technology stocks, Venture Corporation $VENTURE CORPORATION LIMITED(V03.SI)$ , UMS Holdings $UMS HOLDINGS LIMITED(558.SI)$ , AEM Holdings $AEM HOLDINGS LTD(AWX.SI)$ generated respective total return of 19%, 41% and 79% from the end of 2019 through to 28 April 2023. For the past four months, these three stocks generated respective declines of 0.5%, 12.7% and 1.2% while the most traded non-Index Daily Leveraged Certificates included Tencent $TENCENT(00700)$ $Tencent Holding Ltd.(TCEHY)$ and Meituan $Meituan(03690)$ .

Keppel Corp Led STI in April and 2023 YTD

Keppel Corporation $KEPPEL CORPORATION LIMITED(BN4.SI)$ , Jardine Cycle & Carriage $JARDINE CYCLE & CARRIAGE LTD(C07.SI)$ and CapitaLand Investment $CapitaLandInves(9CI.SI)$ led the STI in April, averaging 9.0% total returns, bringing their 4-month total returns to 34.3%, 18.5% and 5.4% respectively.

Stocks that led the STI decliners in April included SATS $SATS LTD.(S58.SI)$ , City Developments $CITY DEVELOPMENTS LIMITED(C09.SI)$ and Wilmar International $WILMAR INTERNATIONAL LIMITED(F34.SI)$ , which averaged 6.2% declines.

On 20 April, Keppel Corporation updated its 1Q23 Group’s revenue came to S$2.25 billion, up 9% YoY with the Energy & Environment (S$1.64 billion), Urban Development (S$244 million) and Connectivity (S$326 million) segments reporting higher contributions.

https://www.sgx.com/research-education/market-updates/20230502-keppel-corp-jardine-cc-and-capitaland-invest-led-sti