Real estate investment trusts, or REITs, are popular investment choices in the Singapore stock market. REITs tend to have high dividend yields (technically, a REIT’s dividend is known as a distribution – but let’s not split hairs here!) due to their need to distribute at least 90% of their taxable income to unitholders in order to enjoy tax transparency. With that in mind, let’s take a look at three REITs with market caps of above a billion dollars that are trading at yields over 7%. Source: SGX Stock Facts In our previous article, we looked at ESR-REIT (SGX: J91U) and CapitaLand Retail China Trust (SGX: AU8U). In this article, we will look at the third REIT, which is Frasers Commercial Trust (SGX: ND8U) or FCT. As a quick introduction, FCT is a REIT that focuses primarily

This morning, CapitaLand Limited (SGX: C31) announced its brand-new “phygital” (the coming together of physical and digital) retail concept at Plaza Singapura, named NomadX. NomadX has 11,000 square feet of space showcasing a plethora of online retailers and a multitude of brand names. This really excited me as I envision a phygital concept to be the future of retail, where customers make use of technology to engage with retailers (and vice versa), and where customers can also experience a product or service before purchase. Here are three retail trends I managed to tease out from CapitaLand’s announcement which I think would define the future direction of retail. Omni-channel presence Online retailers such as Alibaba‘s Taobao, as well as online fashion brand Style

Real estate investment trusts, or REITs, are popular investment choices in the Singapore stock market. That’s because REITs tend to have high dividend yields (technically, a REIT’s dividend is known as a distribution – but let’s not split hairs here!) due to their need to distribute up to 90% of their taxable income to unitholders in order to enjoy tax transparency. In this article, I will like to discuss two REITs that currently have high distribution yields of over 7% right now. They are: ESR-REIT (SGX: J91U) and CapitaLand Retail China Trust  (SGX: AU8U). The duo also happen to be sizeable REITs in Singapore’s stock market, given their market capitalisations of over S$1 billion each. Source: SGX Stock Facts As a quick introduction, ESR-REIT invests in industrial real

After the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) released the final 3Q18 private property index data on 26 October 2018, all eyes are on the stock price performance of several property counters, including the bulge bracket names like CapitaLand, City Developments (CityDev), and UOL Group (UOL). For the 3Q18, the PPI showed a 0.5 percent rise quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), one of the slowest paces of rise this year. The index had a 3.9 per cent rise in 1Q18, and a 3.4 percent rise in 2Q18. Final new home sales figures showed 3,012 private residential units sold in the third quarter, compared to 2,366 in 2Q18. The increase in new sales could be attributed to last minute panic buying before the implementation of the new cooling measures. Source: URA However, despite that, the overall picture for rea

Top 30 in my portfolio: No. STOCK NAME No.of SHARES PORTFOLIO% MARKET $ 1SGX5,50012.176.842SATS4,0006.454.983CapitaLand Mall Tr9,0006.142.114UOB7475.8924.385SPH6,0005.142.656OCBC Bank1,4675.1010.747AIMSAMPI Cap Ind R10,0004.341.348Starhub7,0004.261.889Suntec Reit5,8003.321.7710FCT4,7003.282.1611SingTel3,1903.263.1612Keppel Corp1,6003.216.2013CDL HTrust6,8003.191.4514Keppel DC Reit7,4003.181.3315ParkwayLife Reit3,6003.032.6016SPH Reit8,5002.710.98517Starhill Global Reit12,0002.600.6718Mapletree Com Tr4,8002.501.6119Frasers Com Tr4,9872.211.3720CapitaLand2,0002.083.1421Frasers L&I Tr6,0001.981.0222Bukit Sembawang1,0001.735.3523Sembcorp Indust1,8001.642.8224Ascendas Reit2,0001.632.5225SIA Engg1,5001.372.8326Keppel InfraTr9,0001.340.4627Frasers Property1,8000.921.5828ST Engg8000.

On Tuesday, CapitaLand Retail China Trust (SGX: AU8U), or CRCT, released its 2018 third quarter earnings update. As a quick introduction, CRCT is a Singapore-based real estate investment trust (REIT) which owns shopping malls in China, Hong Kong and Macau. Here are 9 things investors should know about CRCT’s latest results: 1. Gross revenue for the reporting quarter declined by 1.1% to S$55.4 million, but net property income increased by 2.2% to S$36.7 million. 2. Distribution per unit (DPU) grew 1.7% year-on-year to 2.41 cents. 3. Based on CRCT’s annualised DPU of 10.43 cents and its unit price of S$1.37 (as of time of writing), the REIT has a trailing distribution yield of 7.6%. 4. As of 30 September 2018, the REIT’s gearing stood at 35.9%, which is a safe distance from the regula

CapitaLand Limited (SGX: C31) is a real estate developer and owner, and is one of the largest companies in Singapore’s stock market. Its diversified global real estate portfolio includes integrated developments, shopping malls, serviced residences, offices and homes. At the current price of S$3.05 (at the time of writing), CapitaLand’s shares are just 7 cents higher than the 52-week low price of S$2.98. This raises a question: Is CapitaLand cheap now? This question is important because if the firm’s shares are cheap, it might be a good opportunity for investors. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. But, we can still get some insight by comparing CapitaLand’s current valuations with that of the market. The three valuation metrics I will focus on are the price-to-book (PB) ra

Private investors love shares in property developers. And they can find them in just about every stock market in the world. But shares in these builders can also be unnervingly volatile. That’s because developers are affected by a host of factors that is often out of the control of shareholders. These uncontrollable elements include government policies, prevailing interest rates, the availability of credit, economic conditions, unemployment levels and even sociological and technological changes. Skyscraper index strikes again Apart from those external factors, another key challenge that developers face is the time that it can take from the start of a property project to its completion. Consider the construction of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai at a reported cost of US$1.5 billion. The buildi

As Halloween approaches, even the stock market has got in on the act. The Straits Times Index (STI), a benchmark index in Singapore, spooked investors by dipping below 3000 for the first time since January 2017. Eventually closing at 2972.02 on 26 October 2018 (Friday), the STI has lost nearly 13.4% since the start of 2018. In fact, since the beginning of October, it has fallen close to 8.7%. This drop, and heightened volatility, has caused many investors to take a tepid approach to investing in the stock markets. This brings us to our topic for this week – Low Beta. Beta Beta is a measure of the volatility of the stock compared to the rest of the market. A stock with a beta of 1 indicates that its price moves in tandem with the benchmark. A stock with a beta of more than 1 indicates tha

This morning, CapitaLand Commercial Trust (SGX: C61U) announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2018. As a quick introduction for context later, CapitaLand Commercial Trust is Singapore’s first and largest commercial real estate investment trust (REIT). Its portfolio currently comprises nine office properties in Singapore, and one in Frankfurt, Germany, which was acquired in June 2018. Let’s look at some key takeaways from the REIT’s latest earnings update: 1. Gross revenue for the reporting quarter climbed 35.6% year-on-year to S$100.5 million while net property income (NPI) improved by 37.3% to S$80.4 million. The excellent performance was mainly due to the acquisitions of Asia Square Tower 2 and Gallileo (the German property), which more than offset the loss of

CapitaLand Mall Trust (SGX: C38U) is the first real estate investment trust (REIT) listed in our local stock market. It owns retail malls, and some of the malls in its portfolio include Tampines Mall, Junction 8, and Plaza Singapura. Before the stock market opened on Thursday (25 October) morning, CapitaLand Mall Trust announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2018. Let’s look at the main aspects of the announcement here. Financial highlights Gross revenue for 2018’s third quarter rose 0.7% year-on-year to S$170.5 million while net property income (NPI) grew 1.1% to S$122.7 million. CapitaLand Mall Trust attributed its higher gross revenue to improved contributions from Junction 8, IMM Building, Plaza Singapura, Bedok Mall, and Tampines Mall. The growth factors w

At the time of writing, Singapore’s stock market benchmark, the Straits Times Index (SGX: ^STI), has fallen below 3,000 points. The last time the index fell below this mark was in late 2015. But declines are better expressed in terms of percentages, rather than points. At its current level, the STI is down almost 18% from its highest point over the past year. If the index continues falling and breaches the 20% mark, we will have a bear market in our hands. Putting It Into Context A bear market sounds scary, but it shouldn’t be – that is, if we focus on the right things. First of all, bear markets are quite common and are expected to happen from time to time. Between 1993 and 2016, a period of 24 years, the STI had fallen 20% or more (from peak-to-trough) in two years ou

Shipbuilder Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings Ltd (SGX: BS6) was the biggest loser for the week among the Straits Times Index‘s (SGX: ^STI) 30 constituents. Yangzijiang’s share price sunk 7.1% to S$1.18, compared to the index’s 0.2% dip to 3,062. In all, 15 companies in the Straits Times Index ended the week with a lower share price, while 13 made gains and two had share prices that remain unchanged. A week ago, Yangzijiang announced that it had entered into a joint venture with Japanese shipbuilders, Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding Co Ltd and Mitsui & Co Ltd, to establish a shipbuilding company in China. Yangzijiang will own a 51% stake in the joint venture, which will produce commercial vessels out of the Taicang yard in Jiangsu, China, from April next year. The second

A year ago, Phillip Capital Management, along with Lion Global Investors, launched the Lion-Phillip S-REIT ETF. The ETF aimed to give investors a way to invest in a diversified basket of Singapore REITs (S-REITs) which paid a steady stream of distributions. (At the moment, the average distribution yield for S-REITs is 6.8%.) The ETF was met with a largely positive response from the market – Lion Global Investors and Phillip Capital Management initially aimed to raise S$40-50 million but exceeded their target when the fund raised over S$100 million last October. Capitalizing on the Singapore market’s appetite for yield, Phillip Capital Management has now launched the Phillip SING Income ETF. The initial offer period for the ETF will close at 11:00 a.m. on 19 October 2018 before its list

Back in June, Temasek’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Azalea Group, offered the Astrea IV bond to retail investors in Singapore. The bond was the first ever private equity backed-bond to be listed here. This week, Temasek once again broke new ground with the T2023-S$ bond offer — it is the very first time that Temasek bonds are open to retail investors in Singapore, which was previously available only to institutions and accredited investors. For those who don’t already know, Temasek Holdings is a private investment company fully-owned by the Singapore government that manages a portfolio of assets worth S$308 billion (as at 31 March 2018). It manages one of the largest funds in the world — ninth largest according to this list — and many of the biggest companies listed in S

Real estate investment trusts, or REITs, are popular investment choices in the Singapore stock market. That’s because REITs tend to have high dividend yields (technically, a REIT’s dividend is known as a distribution – but let’s not split hairs here!) due to their need to distribute up to 90% of their taxable income to their unitholders in order to enjoy tax transparency. But, not every REIT would be a good investment. And with around 40 REITs and stapled trusts (trusts that consist of a REIT and a business trust) in our local stock market, it’s important that investors attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff. So, where should we start in our hunt for potential investing opportunities amongst REITs? One way I do is to look for REITs with share prices that have fallen hard an

The bear has bare its fangs on our local stock market. Following the plunge in US equities on Wednesday overnight, local benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) plunged as much as 3 percent to 3,035.2 on Thursday, 11 October 2018. The STI managed to regain some ground to close 2.7 percent in the red at 3,047. The plunge in stocks worldwide was attributed to spiking US bond yields. Investors seem to be pricing in the risks of an imminent recession if interest rates continue to rise and push up borrowing costs. For the time being, the STI is being supported technically by the critical 3,000-point psychological level, giving local investors some reprieve. However, investors are not in the clear yet. At the current level, the STI is 16.5 percent down from its peak of 3,641.65 which was seen in Apr

Came across Capitaland chart and found it is rather interesting from Elliott Wave Supercycle degree, assuming its price follows Elliott Wave pattern.The data was from 2000 till now and for that period of 18 years, it appears only move from Supercycle Wave ((C)) to Supercycle Wave ((1)) and to Supercycle Wave ((2)).Wave ((C)) happened in 2003, the period when economy recession (2001 to 2003) plus SARS outbreak sent its price into correction.Wave ((1)) peaked in 2007 prior to the 2008 GFC due to US subprime crisis.  In general market indices and most stocks recovered from the correction in 2009 but Capitaland continued the corrective till now, a period of 11 years.  It is quite a lengthy correction but not impossible in Elliott Wave Supercycle degree, the longest encountered so far

Commercial tenants are no longer only looking for conventional office spaces for their businesses. Co-working spaces are increasingly becoming the norm in the commercial real estate market. To tap on to the growth of the co-working space, property giant, CapitaLand Limited (SGX: C31), recently announced that it is embarking on a new strategy. CapitaLand’s “office of the future” strategy, as it is called, involves combining a building’s conventional office space (core) and flexible space (flex) to create innovative workplace solutions. For the flexible space, co-working space is one of the types. With this new core-flex offering, tenants can have the flexibility to change their requirements as they wish. Capital Tower and Asia Square Tower 2, which are under CapitaLand Commercial Tr

With an aim to address the common-man-investor’s problem of being sucked into dividend traps, Phillip Capital Management is offering a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) to provide income-hungry investors with an ability to invest in a diversified group of quality dividend companies in one fell swoop. The Phillip SING Income ETF (SGX: OVQ), as it is called, is Phillip Capital’s third ETF in Singapore’s stock market. The new ETF was launched yesterday, and The Motley Fool Singapore was invited to an exclusive media briefing for the launch-event. The Phillip SING Income ETF aims to fully replicate the Morningstar Singapore Yield Focus Index. The 30-stock index selects Singapore-listed companies based on three main factors: business quality; financial health; and dividend yield. In