Trump doesn’t need to take over Greenland to score a win
Kwan Wei Kevin Tan - “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen,” said Vladimir Lenin, leader of Russia’s 1917 revolution. With US President Donald Trump, however, something is always happening. On Jan 20, the 79-year-old marked one year into his second term with a two-hour ...
Inside Great Eastern’s Universal Life play
Goola Warden - Universal Life (UL) products have long been part of Singapore’s insurance landscape. Over the past 12 to 18 months, their appeal has surged, largely because they are typically priced in US dollars, although GEH also offers an SGD version. Since early 2025, US and local interest rates have gone in ...
Great Eastern CFO on crises, capital and the long game
Goola Warden - Ronnie Tan, group CFO of Great Eastern Holdings (GEH), has seen the insurance industry change dramatically since joining the life insurer in 2002. “Beyond the technical aspect of implementing IFRS 17, I think one of the biggest achievements I am proud of is being able to navigate Great Eastern thr ...
STI is ‘far more than just a dividend index’, says FTSE Russell CEO Fiona Bassett
Kwan Wei Kevin Tan and Felicia Tan - Before the Straits Times Index (STI) began reaching new highs, Singapore’s benchmark equity index had earned a reputation for being stable, dividend-driven and, dare we say it, a little boring. This perception likely stems from the type of companies that make up the index. Of the STI’s 30 consti ...
Winds of change in valuations for life insurance companies
Goola Warden - For financial institutions, capital and capital ratios are important metrics. While Common Equity Tier 1 for banks is based on the ratio of their common equity divided by their risk-weighted assets, life insurers have different ways of calculating risk-based capital (RBC). Great Eastern Holdings ado ...
ASL Marine’s turnaround comes with an uncomfortable safety footnote
Frankie Ho - After a once-in-a-generation pandemic boom, Asia’s maritime services industry has entered a more sober and disciplined phase. Ship chartering remains above pre-Covid norms but is off the euphoric highs of 2021–2022. Tankers have outperformed, with Western sanctions reshaping oil trade flows and ...
Stanchart says 2026 ‘very, very different’ following multi-year liquidity peak
Felicia Tan - As the world emerges from a multi-year peak in global liquidity in 2025, this year could shape up to be a “very, very different” year with the reversal of some of those capital flows. “The flood of liquidity that we saw globally and in Asia, I think, is going to start to turn,” says Eric Rob ...
Why are fintechs riding high?
Nirgunan Tiruchelvam - Investors may remember Catch Me if You Can, the 2002 movie that stars Leonardo DiCaprio. The heart-throb plays Frank Abagnale, a con artist who swindled his victims of over US$2.5 million in the 1960s. Abagnale was a teenager with immense charm and confidence. At 18 years old, he stood over 6 feet ( ...
Bank of Japan keeps rates steady, raises growth and inflation forecasts
The central bank vowed to raise rates if economic and price developments move in line with its projections
Freeport says it’s on track to restart Indonesia copper mine after deadly mudslide
The company has already restarted two unaffected areas of the mine since the incident in September
Go ahead and resent boomers but for the right reasons
Allison Schrager - There is a natural human tendency to assume that your generation has it harder than everyone else. Even by those standards, however, baby boomers (and some older millennials) are on the receiving end of an extraordinary amount of resentment. You could fill a good-sized library with all the books dev ...
Are central banks enabling unsustainable government deficits?
Raghuram G. Rajan - Japan, the US and other countries with sovereign debt at or above total GDP need to shrink their fiscal deficits to keep their debts from growing to terrifying levels. The problem is particularly concerning when a country faces higher real interest rates, since fiscal deficits rise further when the ...
Why audit and accounting failures are often cultural and what we can do about it
Gabriela Figueiredo Dias - When major audit or accounting failures make headlines, the first instinct is to look for the individual at fault. Who made the wrong call? Who crossed the line? Who failed to speak up? Individual accountability matters. But experience tells us it rarely explains the full story. Across Asia and glob ...
History marches past Davos
Mariana Mazzucato - As the World Economic Forum (WEF) convenes in Davos under the banner “A Spirit of Dialogue”, the US has seized control of Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, installing what President Donald Trump calls an “indefinite” American administration of the country’s petroleum reserves, while blackm ...
UOB soars 4%, OCBC jumps 3% to new records, driving STI to all-time high
Shikhar Gupta - The STI rises 1.2% as UOB and OCBC shares surge
UOB soars 5% and OCBC jumps 3.4%; new peaks drive STI to all-time high
Shikhar Gupta - This comes as analysts raise their target prices for both UOB and OCBC
UOB soars 5% as OCBC jumps 3.4%; record highs drive STI to all-time peak
Shikhar Gupta - This comes as analysts raise their target prices for both lenders
UOB soars 4.8% as OCBC jumps 3.4%; new peaks drive STI to all-time high
Shikhar Gupta - This comes as analysts raise their target prices for the two lenders
UOB soars 4%, hitting record alongside OCBC; STI up 1.1% to new peak
Shikhar Gupta - Both shares and the index hit all-time highs
UOB soars 3.6%, hitting record alongside OCBC; STI up 1% to new peak
Shikhar Gupta - Both shares and the index hit all-time highs
UOB soars 3.6% to hit record as OCBC also hits a high; STI jumps 1%
Shikhar Gupta - OCBC and UOB shares climb 2.7% and 3.1%, respectively
China’s 5% growth defies the headlines
Daryl Guppy - China’s GDP figures, released on Jan 19, showed annual growth of 5% for 2025. Some Western media were quick to strike a downbeat tone, leading with headlines that fixated on the December quarter falling short of analysts’ expectations rather than the broader picture. For these news groups, the t ...
Bank of Singapore prefers Asia ex-Japan equities, neutral on US
Kwan Wei Kevin Tan - Ask investors which country’s stock market they want to park their capital into and they will probably point to the US. In 2025, the country’s flagship S&P 500 index recorded 17.9% in total returns. A large part of those gains came from big tech giants like Nvidia and Google parent company A ...
China’s AI stocks with killer apps are winning investor favour
Profitable app makers are trading more cheaply than some of the more overheated tech segments
Gold, silver and platinum extend record-setting rally
The US dollar index fell to a more than two-week low on Friday
Asean-6: From disruption to advantage
Radhika Rao and Chua Han Teng - Supply-chain shifts triggered by evolving US tariff regimes shaped the Asean-6 landscape in 2025. As production networks realign and investment deepens, 2026 will emerge as a defining year for translating trade disruption into a strategic advantage. While the dominant view around mid-2025 was that t ...
GCMD orchestrates funds for US$20 bil vessel retrofit market
Lin Daoyi - Lynn Loo wears multiple hats: a professor of engineering at Princeton University, a co-founder of start-ups and, in yet another role as CEO of the Global Centre of Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD), she relishes the task of bringing together multiple stakeholders to help the notoriously complex and sp ...
RHB keeps ‘buy’ on Raffles Medical Group citing potential earning growth in 2HFY2025
Teo Zheng Long - RHB Group Research's Shekhar Jaiswal is reiterating his "buy" call on Raffles Medical Group (SGX: BSL ) with an unchanged target price of $1.15. In his Jan 23 report, Jaiswal states that Raffles Medical offers exposure to a “high-quality Singapore healthcare compounder” with impro ...
Amid $100 bil construction boom, SGX’s steel sector buzzes with acquisitions and family fights
Teo Zheng Long - In our recent article on the exciting state of the local construction sector (Multi-year construction boom fires up investor interest, Issue 1219, Dec 15, 2025), we discussed the infrastructure upcycle that has led to greater investor interest in construction companies. Apart from construction playe ...
UOB Kay Hian gets ‘direct leverage’ from broadening market, says Macquarie
The Edge Singapore - As the Straits Times Index (STI) makes new highs regularly amid higher volumes, a direct beneficiary is UOB Kay Hian Holdings (SGX: U10 ) , one of the largest brokers in town. Besides its Singapore base, the brokerage has a significant presence in Hong Kong and Malaysia. From the perspective of Macq ...
Surging memory chip prices dim outlook for consumer electronics makers
GLOBAL demand for smartphones, personal computers and gaming consoles is expected to shrink this year as companies from Britain’s Raspberry Pi to...
Brokers' Digest: DFI Retail, Marco Polo Marine, iFast, Soilbuild, CSE Global
The Edge Singapore - DFI Retail Group Price target: UOB Kay Hian ‘buy’ US$5.30 Bolder targets and greater expectations UOB Kay Hian’s Adrian Loh has raised his target price for DFI Retail Group (SGX: D01 ) to US$5.30 ($6.82) from US$4.30, following the company’s “bolder” targets for sales and capital returns ...
Price of office space falls 2.1% in 2025 but rents rise 0.3%: URA
Jovi Ho - Prices of office space decreased by 0.7% in 4Q2025, compared with the 0.2% decrease in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, rentals of office space increased by 0.4% in 4Q2025, compared with the 0.1% decrease in the previous quarter. For the whole of 2025, prices of office space decreased by 2.1%, compa ...
SGX seeks public feedback on reduction of board lot sizes
Chloe Lim - If the market supports the changes, they will be implemented mid-2026
