The 10 SG stocks beyond the 30 STI constituents that have attracted the most Net Institutional Inflows since the recent 23 March market low include NetLink NBN Trust, AEM, Mapletree Industrial Trust, StarHub, Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust, Keppel REIT, Keppel DC REIT, Thomson Medical, SIA Engineering and Q&M Dental Group.
The 10 stocks have a combined market value of S$27 billion and traded a combined S$109 million in daily turnover for the first 4 months of 2020. Since the 23 March low, the 10 stocks were recipient to a combined net institutional inflow of S$122 million.
For the month of April, these 10 stocks averaged a 20% gain, more than three times the gains of the STI. This brought their average total return for the first 4 months of 2020 to -1%, with AEM, Keppel DC REIT & NetLink NBN Trust the strongest performers for the period.
At 18% on 30 April, the Straits Times Index (STI) 10-day annualised volatility had returned much closer to its long term normalised levels of 12%. This followed the short term volatility gauge reaching as high as 80% in late March, with the STI forming an intra-year low at 2,208 on 23 March.
In April, global stock markets continued partial recoveries from the 23 March low, and in the case of the S&P 500, the alternative equally weighted index outpaced the capitalisation weighted index. Looking back, the most recent full year that saw the equally weighted S&P 500 Index outperform the capitalisation weighted S&P 500 Index was back in 2016, and on a monthly basis, this has generally occurred only one-third of the time since 2016. In part, this reflects the current scale of the US’ recent fiscal and monetary policy responses that are intended to support businesses well beyond the big end of town. As Federal Reserve Chair noted in last week’s press conference, as important job creators, medium-sized and small-sized businesses are worth so much more to the economy than the sum of their net assets.
10 Non-STI Stocks that Attracted Most Net Institutional Inflows since 23 March
Of the 10 SGX-listed stocks that attracted the highest net institutional inflows since 23 March that are not currently not large enough to qualify for STI conclusion, 8 of the 10 stocks outpaced the STI in the month of April. For the 2 stocks that did not outpace the STI in April, they have been significantly more defensive that the STI over the first four months of 2020.
The 10 SGX-listed non-STI stocks that attracted the highest net institutional inflows from 24 March through to 30 April were
- NetLink NBN Trust,
- AEM Holdings,
- Mapletree Industrial Trust,
- StarHub,
- Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust,
- Keppel REIT,
- Keppel DC REIT,
- Thomson Medical Group,
- SIA Engineering and
- Q & M Dental Group.
Reordering these 10 stocks to the high net institutional inflow proportionate to 30 April market capitalisation, they are: AEM Holdings, Q & M Dental Group, NetLink NBN Trust, StarHub, Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust, Mapletree Industrial Trust, Keppel REIT, Keppel DC REIT, Thomson Medical Group, SIA Engineering.
The net institutional inflows and individual price performances of the 10 stocks are tabled below.
| Name | SGX Code |
Average daily Turnover in 2020 YTD S$M |
Mkt Cap S$M |
Net Institutional Inflow since 23 March 2020 S$M |
April Total Return % |
YTD Total Return % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AEM HOLDINGS | AWX | 18.9 | 671 | 19.1 | 46.7 | 21.3 |
| Q & M DENTAL GROUP | QC7 | 0.7 | 378 | 3.1 | 35.8 | 4.7 |
| NETLINK NBN TRUST | CJLU | 12.5 | 3,897 | 27.5 | 10.5 | 5.8 |
| STARHUB | CC3 | 4.2 | 2,580 | 15.0 | 12.0 | 4.9 |
| FRASERS LOGISTICS & COMMERCIAL | BUOU | 12.2 | 2,398 | 13.6 | 24.5 | -11.2 |
| MAPLETREE INDUSTRIAL TRUST | ME8U | 25.7 | 5,613 | 17.7 | 4.9 | -0.7 |
| KEPPEL REIT | K71U | 12.0 | 3,583 | 9.5 | 13.1 | -12.4 |
| KEPPEL DC REIT | AJBU | 20.2 | 3,837 | 8.9 | 2.6 | 14.0 |
| THOMSON MEDICAL GROUP | A50 | 0.8 | 1,613 | 3.6 | 35.6 | -4.7 |
| SIA ENGINEERING CO | S59 | 1.5 | 2,095 | 3.4 | 9.4 | -33.7 |
| Average | 19.5 | -1.2 |
Source: SGX, Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters (Data as of 30 April 2020)
The 3 best performing stocks over the first four months of 2020 tabled above were AEM Holdings and Keppel DC REIT and NetLink NBN Trust, with the growth of Internet Enterprises a common thread to these stocks.
On 28 April, AEM Holdings reported its best quarterly performance on record in 1QFY20 (ended 31 March) with revenue up 179% to S$147 million, on increased orders from its main customer. The test and handling solutions provider for semiconductor and electronics companies (serving advanced computing, 5G and AI markets) maintains its revenue guidance for FY20 to be between S$360 million to S$380 million (was S$222 million in the FY17). Click here for more.
On 21 April, Keppel DC REIT reported its 1QFY20 (ended 31 March) Net Property Income grew 28.3% year-on-year, click here for more. In the FY18 AGM, Keppel DC REIT Management Limited CEO Chua Hsien Yang, reiterated policy was to not share tenant names, rather share “Trade Sector” of the REIT clients. This was due to confidentiality to the location of the data centres very important to clients. In the FY19 Annual Report, under “Trade Sector for December 2019, Internet Enterprise made up 48.5% of rental income. Furthermore at the FY18 AGM, the CEO stated that its clients included “hyperscale cloud providers that are now amongst the largest companies in the world and the risk of default are very low”.
NetLink NBN Management Pte. Ltd., as trustee-manager of NetLink NBN Trust, will be announcing the financial results of NetLink NBN Trust for the full year and fourth quarter ended 31 March 2020, after the close of trading on 6 May 2020.
