Top Stock Market Highlights of the Week: Singapore Household Wealth, Singapore Corporate Awards and Keppel REIT

Keppel REIT replaces Olam Group

The week kicked off with Keppel REIT (SGX: K71U) being named as the replacement for Olam Group Ltd (SGX: VC2) as a Straits Times Index (SGX: ^STI) reserve list stock.

This announcement came as part of the FTSE Rusell’s September 2023 review of the STI.

You can think of the reserve list as the “next-in-line” blue chip stocks that may take over any of the current 30 STI constituents.

Currently, there are four other stocks on this list, namely CapitaLand Ascott Trust (SGX: HMN), Frasers Centrepoint Trust (SGX: J69U), Keppel DC REIT (SGX: AJBU), and Suntec REIT (SGX: T82U).

The heavy weightage towards REITs signifies its growing importance to Singapore’s stock market.

At the moment, there are six REITs in the STI, including CapitaLand Ascendas REIT (SGX: A17U), CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust (SGX: C38U), Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust (SGX: BUOU), Mapletree Industrial Trust (SGX: ME8U), Mapletree Logistics Trust (SGX: M44U) and Mapletree Pan Asian Commerical Trust (SGX: N2IU).

Judging by the latest reserve list, don’t be surprised if there is a seventh REIT in the STI.

Singapore Corporate Awards

On Thursday, 30 companies and six executives were honoured at the 18th Singapore Corporate Awards.

Keppel Corporation Ltd (SGX: BN4) and United Overseas Bank Ltd (SGX: U11) or UOB both won gold for Best Managed Board.

Meanwhile, Jardine Cycle & Carriage Ltd (SGX: C07) Group Managing Director Benjamin Birks was named Best CEO while City Developments Limited’s (SGX: C09) Yong Yim Ming took top honours for the CFO category.

The above were for companies with a market capitalisation of S$1 billion and above.

Other notable winners include Netlink NBN Trust (SGX: CJLU) win for Best Investor Relations under the REIT and Business Trust category.

Speaking of REITs, CapitaLand Ascendas REIT took home the award for Best Annual Report.

Singapore Household Wealth

Finally, Singapore’s households’ net wealth increased 8.9% year on year to S$2.7 trillion in the second quarter of 2023 (2Q’23).

This data comes from the Singapore Department of Statistics.

Net wealth, calculated as assets minus liabilities, benefited from a 7.6% year-on-year rise in asset value to S$3 trillion.

The majority of the wealth is in property ownership.

According to Singstat, at the end of 2Q’23, around a quarter of household assets were held in the form of private housing while a little under a fifth was from public housing.

The rest were in financial assets such as currency and deposits (19.9% of 2Q’23 household assets), CPF (18.3%), shares and securities (8.9%), life insurance (8.6%), and others.

At The Smart Investor, we are advocates of stock ownership — so, you’ll know where our preference lies.

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Disclosure: Chin Hui Leong owns shares of CapitaLand Ascendas REIT, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust, Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust, Frasers Centrepoint Trust, Keppel DC REIT, Mapletree Industrial Trust, Mapletree Logistics Trust, Mapletree Pan-Asian Commercial Trust, Suntec REIT, and UOB.

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