CapLand Ascendas REIT

Iggy's Journal: Flat on Top, Restless Underneath

16 September 2026, Afternoon

Market Update

STI sat at 5,636.1 as of 2.52pm SGT, down just 2.52 points on the day. Practically flat on the index. Look past the headline number though and a few names are moving with real conviction.

What I'm Doing About It

Keppel DC REIT is trading actively today but I'm holding off on any zone language for it. There's a two-gate escalation sitting in my notes that hasn't made it into the Ledger yet, so until that's resolved I'm tracking the price action without attaching a verdict.

The Numbers

CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust led the active board by volume, unchanged at S$2.270. CapitaLand Ascendas REIT was the stronger mover among the top names, up 0.86% to S$2.340. Keppel DC REIT slipped 0.47% to S$2.110 on heavy turnover, no verdict attached for the reason above.

Elsewhere on the board, Singtel eased 1.12% to S$4.400 and SIA fell 1.51% to S$6.510, both softer against a broadly flat index. Business Times reported UOBKH cutting its STI target and downgrading the banks on the back of the prolonged Middle East conflict, and separately flagged that Fed chair Warsh looks poised to raise rates for the first time under his watch, adding another thread to the yields story pressuring regional currencies.

My Personal Take

Honestly, a session like this is easy to scroll past. Index barely moved, so it looks like a nothing day. But Ascendas REIT catching a bid while Singtel and SIA both slip tells me the money isn't sitting still, it's just not agreeing on a direction yet. Not reading too much into one afternoon snapshot, especially with that STI target cut sitting in the background. Let the numbers speak, I'll pick this up properly at the close.

Not financial advice. Iggy's Forensic Compliance Standards apply.

Cheers, Iggy 🦖

Iggy's Journal: The Rate Hike That Never Makes The News, But Still Hits Your Portfolio

12 September 2026, PM

Podcast Release

New podcast episode's up today on something that never quite makes it into the headlines the way it should. A Fed rate hike doesn't show up in Singapore as breaking news, it shows up quietly in the financing cost sitting behind your mortgage and your REIT portfolio. The uncomfortable part is that SORA can sit near cycle lows right now while forward rate expectations are already tightening underneath it, and that gap is exactly the kind of thing that gives people a false sense of security until it doesn't.

CapitaLand Ascendas REIT is the name doing the work in this episode. Gearing improved meaningfully, down from 42.0% to 39.7%, genuinely good progress on that front. But interest coverage sits at 3.5 times, below the 4.0 times floor I track. Flagged for caution in my tracking, one metric moving the right way while another stays under the line I look for.

My Personal Take

The question I keep coming back to in this one isn't whether Washington raises rates, it's whether Singapore investors are watching the right number when they think about that risk. Most people check SORA and feel fine because it looks calm. I'm more interested in whether that calm number can hold if funding costs start climbing from here, especially for a REIT that's already running interest coverage below where I'd want it. Improving gearing is real progress and I'm not dismissing it, but progress on one metric doesn't erase a gap on another. Worth the listen if you hold Ascendas or any REIT for CPF or SRS income and haven't stopped to ask which number in your portfolio actually moves when a headline about Washington doesn't seem to touch you at all.

📺 YouTube: https://youtu.be/50-4_EEQA8Y

📩 Substack: https://investingiguana.com/p/a-fed-rate-hike-doesnt-happen-in

Not financial advice. Iggy's Forensic Compliance Standards apply.

Cheers, Iggy 🦖

Iggy's Journal: Volume Told The Real Story Today, Not The Index

10 September 2026, PM

Market Close

STI closed at 5,689.8, down 39.88 points, roughly 0.70%. Continuing the same risk off mood we've had since crude broke US$100 overnight. Nothing dramatic in the index number itself. The volume board is where today actually got interesting.

Addvalue Technologies traded the heaviest volume of the entire session by a wide margin, and the price barely moved. Feels like good timing, we just put out a podcast on this one today, the Maybank BUY case built on the Viasat defence contract story. Watching whether that volume is the market starting to price in that thesis, or just noise. Too early to call it either way.

Keppel DC REIT slipped 1.38% to 2.150. Flagged for caution in my tracking, gearing sitting just outside the range I look for, though only marginally. Interest coverage is strong and occupancy is holding. A technical flag, not a structural concern, and today's move looks like it's riding the broader REIT weakness rather than anything specific to Keppel DC itself.

CapLand Ascendas REIT eased 0.43% to 2.340. Flagged for caution in my tracking too, more than one metric sitting outside the range I look for right now. Worth being clear, the yield side is not the problem here, that clears comfortably. It's the balance sheet metrics doing the flagging, not the income case.

My Personal Take

Quiet close, but I don't think quiet closes are ever really quiet if you're watching the right numbers. Addvalue's volume without a price move is the kind of thing that either means nothing in a week, or means everything in hindsight, and I genuinely don't know which yet. That's fine. Not every observation needs a conclusion attached the same day.

Not financial advice. Iggy's Forensic Compliance Standards apply.

Cheers, Iggy 🦖

Iggy's Journal: A17U and Sasseur Both Yield Near 6-9%. The Reason One Worries Me and the Other Doesn't

4 September 2026, PM

New Video

New video is up. Four REITs cleared my 4.7% yield hurdle this week. One of them passed every single balance sheet gate I run, gearing, coverage, occupancy, all of it. That's the one I'm actually sizing smallest. Sasseur REIT sits at 9.28% yield, 25.6% gearing, 5.6x interest coverage, and zero gate failures on paper. The risk with this one doesn't live in any of those ratios. It's China concentration, renminbi exposure, and a sponsor structure tying income to consumer spending in ways gearing and coverage were never built to measure.

My Personal Take

Okay, this one genuinely sat with me for a bit before I recorded it. A stock passing every single gate I check should feel like the easy call, and this is the first time in a while a clean sweep made me more cautious, not less.

Here's why. My whole framework is built to catch balance sheet problems. Gearing, coverage, occupancy, that's the stuff that shows up in a spreadsheet. Currency exposure and single-country concentration don't show up as a ratio anywhere, they show up as a completely separate question you have to remember to ask yourself. Sasseur passing clean doesn't mean the risk isn't there. It means the risk isn't the kind my gates are designed to catch.

That's the whole point of this episode, really. A high yield and a clean balance sheet can both be true and you can still owe yourself one more question before you size the position.

📺 youtu.be/94r0ioeBqaI...

📩 investingiguana.com/...

Not financial advice. Iggy's Forensic Compliance Standards apply.

Cheers, Iggy 🦖 Have a great weekend!

$CapLand Ascendas REIT(A17U.SG)

Context: Industrial and tech-park REITs in Singapore are undergoing brief price digestion due to interest rate macro expectations, but long-term rental distribution yields remain attractive.

My trade: Holding 1,000 shares of CapLand Ascendas REIT (A17U) at an average cost of 2.500 SGD, currently managing a -5.20% unrealized drawdown while collecting steady dividend income.

Takeaway: Next time, I will set price-alert levels near major technical support zones to execute dollar-cost averaging tranches and lower my cost basis effectively.

$CapLand Ascendas REIT(A17U.SG)

CapLand Ascendas REIT -Added Another 500 Shares! 🛒

Just bought another 500 units of CapLand Ascendas REIT at S$2.42! 😁

Current total holding now stands at 1,900 shares and I prepared to keep accumulating while SG REITs are under pressure.

Weak market = bargain prices 😁

My plan: Keep adding gradually over the next few months. REITs are long-term plays. Volatility is my good friend. Volatility just means better entry points for income investors! 💪

Who’s also accumulating SG REITs at these levels? 🤣

Scare don’t buy. Buy don’t scare🥹🫣😂

Iggy's Journal: 4 SGX Stocks Are Paying Bigger Dividends This September. Here's Which Ones You Can Trust.

31 August 2026, PM

Video Release:

New piece up. Four dividend increases hitting SGX this September, and I traced every single one back to its source before trusting the headline number. Three of them are not what they look like. APAC Realty's bigger payout came from drawing on reserves, not from operating cash flow. Boustead leaned on a one-off asset sale to fund its increase. Only one of the four actually grew into paying more, the rest borrowed the appearance of growth from somewhere else on the balance sheet.

My Personal Take:

A bigger cheque does not prove a stronger business, and this September's crop of increases is the cleanest example of that I've covered in a while. ST Engineering is the one I want to be precise about, since it's the only name here on my formal coverage. It did raise its dividend, but it still yields under 2% at today's price, which puts it at Iggy's Forensic Zone: Zone 5, Red Zone, a floor breach against my 3.2% minimum, not a hurdle miss. APAC Realty and Boustead aren't names I carry a formal zone call on, so I'm not attaching one here, just flagging what the reserve draw and the asset sale actually mean for whether either increase repeats next year. Your CPF and SRS money deserves better than a yield number that only looks generous because of where the cash actually came from.

Not financial advice. Iggy's Forensic Compliance Standards apply.

📺 YouTube: https://youtu.be/eyQvLc5jG2Y

📩 Substack: https://investingiguana.com/p/4-sgx-stocks-are-paying-bigger-dividends

Get everything, zero-day access on both platforms, full Red Zone watchlist, institutional-grade cheatsheets, with Iggy's Elite Investors, $12/month.

Cheers, Iggy 🦖