SGX

I tested September’s SGX dividends vs CPF 4.0% - Only one passed my 4.7% test 🦖

🔍 The Angle

Five SGX dividend names hit the September calendar. Only one clears my 4.7% yield hurdle when stacked against CPF SA's guaranteed 4.0%. The other four ask you to accept less income than the safest instrument in the system, while carrying full equity risk on top.

💰 What It Means For You

If you're drawing down CPF or SRS now, that gap matters. Sasseur REIT's 10.2% DPU growth and 25.4% gearing clear both the yield test and the balance sheet gate. Asian Pay Television Trust's 11% trailing yield vanishes once you apply management's 2026 guidance cut to 0.80 cents. Iggy's Forensic Zone: Zone 5, Selective.

📺 YouTube: https://youtu.be/DjZpoblDtz0

📩 Substack: https://investingiguana.com/p/september-dividends-vs-my-47-hurdle

The SGX Dividend Stocks Closest to Passing My Forensic Floor (And Why None Have Cleared It Yet) 🦖

🔍 The Angle

I ran every SGX dividend name I track against the 4.7% yield hurdle. None cleared it. The closest miss sits 49 basis points away, the widest 167 basis points out. That gap is not a rounding error, it decides whether your income actually clears the floor.

💰 What It Means For You

A 49-basis-point miss like DBS can close through calendar mechanics alone, SingTel's 167-basis-point gap needs a real move. Your CPF and SRS income depend on understanding which gap you are holding. Iggy's Forensic Zone: Zone 4, Caution.

📺 YouTube: https://youtu.be/-ZDEryRvFhw

📩 Substack: https://investingiguana.com/p/the-sgx-dividend-stocks-closest-to

🦎 IGGY MORNING BRIEF, 21 AUGUST 2026

☕ Good morning, Iguanas. SGX opens at 9 am SGT. Banks stayed under pressure yesterday, and there is a REIT angle worth watching today.

OVERNIGHT US SUMMARY

Wall Street had its worst day in three weeks. Dow -1.32% to 52,759.21. S&P 500 -0.87% to 7,641.16. Nasdaq -1.00% to 26,067.17. Rising oil and expanding US debt revived inflation concerns, while Walmart’s cautious guidance weighed on sentiment. Brent climbed for a fourth straight session to US$92.67 on Middle East supply risk. VIX edged up to 15.21. For SGX, the pressure on banks remains the same story: higher yields and oil, not a new driver.

SGX PRE-OPEN PULSE

STI fell 0.39% to 5,672, slipping below 5,700 early and staying there. DBS -1.03% to S$75.22, with OCBC and UOB also under selling pressure. USD/SGD at 1.2721.

SINGAPORE NEWS ON IGGY’S RADAR

📖 Rising bond yields and S-REITs

A Business Times opinion flags REITs as a quieter casualty of higher yields. The logic holds: higher rates lift funding costs for leveraged assets, already visible in names like Keppel DC REIT. Worth digging deeper if REITs are core holdings.

💰 VICOM raises interim dividend 27.4% to 3.95 cents

Revenue rose 6.4% to S$74.3 million, with profit supported by a 44.2% drop in subcontractor costs. This is operational improvement, not just payout. VICOM remains linked to ComfortDelGro, which stays on my watchlist.

📈 Economists lift 2026 growth forecasts on AI

Another extension of the AI growth narrative. But stronger GDP does not guarantee broad income gains, an important distinction behind the headline numbers.

IGGY’S GAME PLAN

Four sessions of pressure on banks is not noise. With rates and oil both moving higher, I am watching this closely. The REIT angle matters more than it looks, funding pressure builds slowly until it does not. VICOM stands out as a genuine bright spot in an otherwise cautious tape.

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

🦎 IGGY MORNING BRIEF, 20 AUGUST 2026

☕ Good morning, Iguanas. SGX opens at 9 am SGT. A calmer overnight session, plus a genuinely interesting policy signal out of MAS.

OVERNIGHT US SUMMARY

Wall Street steadied after three days of losses. Dow +0.22% to 53,463.05. S&P 500 +0.21% to 7,707.98. Nasdaq +0.16% to 26,331.09. Treasury yields eased as the US Treasury signalled increased long-term debt buybacks. Biotech and healthcare outperformed. VIX fell to 15.08. For SGX, this looks like a pause in selling rather than a full reversal. Watch whether it holds.

SGX PRE-OPEN PULSE

USD/SGD at 1.2712, down ~0.56%. Brent eased to US$90.06, a small pullback after recent gains.

SINGAPORE NEWS ON IGGY’S RADAR

🏦 MAS rolls out tax breaks and wider visa access to attract fund managers

New tax exemptions on qualifying fund profits, including single family offices, plus expanded access to the five-year Overseas Networks and Expertise Pass. This is a clear competitive move against Hong Kong for asset management flows. It is a structural story for where capital and talent sit in the region, not an immediate portfolio mover.

💵 Singtel completes FY2026 dividend, total 18.5 cents per share

Underlying net profit rose 12% to $2.8 billion. This confirms what was already expected: core dividend plus VRD. No change to positioning.

✈️ SATS Q1 net profit +6% to S$75.1 million on cargo growth

A steady result with cargo doing the work. Worth monitoring, especially as the stock was flagged for attention today.

IGGY’S GAME PLAN

The MAS fund manager push is the key story. It signals where Singapore intends to compete over the next few years. Markets stabilising is encouraging, but one session does not reverse a multi-day de-rating. I want to see follow-through. Singtel and SATS both reinforce existing narratives rather than change them.

I will likely cover the MAS story in today’s SGX Daily Pulse podcast with Angela.

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

If you are considering Gold & Silver Daily Leverage Certificates (DLCs) on SGX, my main advice is to treat them as short-term trading instruments, not long-term investments because

1. DLCs reset their leverage daily. Because of daily compounding, holding a 5x DLC for several days does not necessarily produce 5 times the underlying's total return. SGX's own product documentation specifically warns that performance over periods longer than one day can differ substantially from the stated daily leverage. So please don't treat "5x" as 5x of the overall return

2. Gold and silver can move very quickly.Silver is generally more volatile than gold because it also has significant industrial demand.

Due to very large intraday price swings, this type of product are not suitable for inexperienced investors

3. If you are bullish on gold, for example, a Gold Long DLC makes sense only if your expectation is that gold will rise over the relevant short-term trading period.If gold moves against you, the leverage works against you just as quickly.For someone who isn't comfortable monitoring prices actively, a normal gold ETF is generally much easier to manage.

My overall view is that Gold/Silver DLCs can be useful tools when you have a strong short-term view and are comfortable with leverage. The attraction is obvious: you can obtain significant exposure without putting up the full amount required for the underlying.

But the biggest mistake would be to think "Gold is a long-term safe-haven asset, therefore a 5x Gold DLC is a good long-term investment.’

Gold itself can be suitable as a portfolio diversifier over the long term; a daily leveraged certificate is designed for short-term tactical exposure

If your objective is long-term exposure to gold/silver - consider an unleveraged ETF.

If your objective is short-term directional trading - DLCs can be considered, but use strict position sizing and an exit plan.

$Soon Hock(SHE.SG)profits are heavily influenced by the completion and recognition of property development projects.

That means a strong year does not necessarily mean earnings will continue at the same level. Once a major project is completed and revenue is recognised, earnings can fall sharply while the company waits for the next project to contribute.This makes company’s profit less predictable than companies with recurring revenue.

This stock is considerably smaller and less liquid than names such as DBS, UOB or SGX.This means a relatively small amount of selling can move the share price significantly.It may be harder to exit a large position quickly.

while the share price can remain weak even without major negative news.

After this buying experience, I have learnt that’ Dividend shouldn't be the main reason to buy stock’ Especially for a property developer company, dividends can fluctuate depending on project cash flows,Development expenditure,Working-capital requirements and Management's capital allocation decisions.So investors shouldn't assume today's dividend level will necessarily continue indefinitely.

Moving forward I would be more cautious when investing in small-cap property developer, because its earnings and share price can be much more volatile than established Singapore blue chips.

🦎 IGGY MORNING BRIEF, 18 AUGUST 2026

☕ Good morning, Iguanas. SGX opens at 9 am SGT. One item today deserves real attention before anything else.

OVERNIGHT US SUMMARY

Wall Street retreated Monday. Dow down 0.51% to 53,459.78. S&P 500 down 0.52% to 7,745.06. Nasdaq down 0.32% to 26,644.91. Brent crude pushed above US$90/bbl after the 60-day US-Iran peace framework expired and fresh drone attacks hit tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, reviving inflation and stagflation fears. Soft US macro data scaled back rate cut bets; 30-year Treasury yields jumped to 5.29%. VIX rose to 14.90. For SGX, the oil and shipping risk story is the one to watch closely—it carries real cost implications beyond one day’s index move.

SGX PRE-OPEN PULSE

USD/SGD sits at 1.2781. STI’s session yesterday is worth understanding properly: it opened down almost 1% on bank profit-taking (OCBC alone fell over 2% early), then recovered through the day to close up 17 points. A genuine intraday reversal, not a quiet flat session.

SINGAPORE NEWS ON IGGY’S RADAR

📦 July NODX surged 24.2% YoY

Electronics exports drove it, up 112%; disk media products alone up over 300%. This beats the already-upgraded 14–16% full-year forecast comfortably in a single month. A genuinely strong print, not just headline noise.

📊 SGX Group confirms record FY2026, 57¢ full-year dividend

Cash equities daily value rose 35% to an 18-year high; second-half earnings rose 39%. This is a real, confirmed dividend outcome off a record year, not a projection. Given how strongly SGX has benefited from record trading volumes and STI highs this year, this deserves a proper look rather than a passing mention.

IGGY’S GAME PLAN

Two threads to separate clearly today. The oil and Hormuz story is a genuine risk—worth tracking daily, not a one-day blip. Yesterday’s bank-driven dip and recovery reminds us that even a calm-looking close can hide real volatility underneath; check the full session shape, not just the headline, before drawing conclusions.

The quarterly earnings season has been in full swing over the past week. Despite similar performance, it's a world apart from July.

This week, the focus is on Thursday's FOMC meeting. We've noticed the 10-year US Treasury yield oscillating at high levels and could break out upward at any moment.

This is a risk factor.

The "Double-Edged Sword" of Daily Leverage Certificates: Why the daily reset and airbag catch so many traders off guard

With more retail accounts gaining Specified Investment Product (SIP) clearance to trade Daily Leverage Certificates (DLCs) on the SGX, there is still a massive misconception that these can be treated like buy-and-hold leveraged positions.

DLCs are pure tactical, short-term instruments. If you are looking to trade them intraday or over a couple of sessions, three structural realities determine whether they work for you or bleed your capital:

Path Dependency & Volatility Decay: Because leverage factor (3x, 5x, 7x) resets strictly at the close of every trading day, compounding is your best friend in a clean trend, but your worst enemy in chop. If an underlying index moves +3\% on Day 1 and -3\% on Day 2, the underlying is down -0.09\%, but a 5x Long DLC drops by -2.25\%. In a range-bound market, that compounding decay will erode your principal even if the stock goes nowhere overall.

The "V-Shape Trap" of the Airbag: The airbag mechanism is often marketed as a safety net because it pauses trading and resets the baseline after a massive drawdown (e.g., 10\% intraday drop on a 5x certificate). While it stops your certificate from crashing to absolute zero on continuous plunges, it locks in that worst-case loss. If the market aggressively rebounds later that afternoon, your new gains compound off a depleted base—you will not get your initial capital back even if the underlying completely recovers.

Clean Capital Capping vs. CFDs/Futures: The genuine advantage of DLCs over margin products or CFDs is risk containment. You cannot get margin-called, there is no negative account balance risk, and commission is charged only on the traded certificate cash value rather than the total leveraged notional size.

Execution Rule: Use DLCs for high-conviction intraday moves, earnings breakouts, or quick momentum swings. Never park in them for long term.

Since going long on gold in March 2026, my journey of bottom-fishing has not been smooth sailing. I experienced deep "bagholding" when buying GLD and GLDM at the top in May, but I always believed in the major trend. Through steadfast dollar-cost averaging at lower levels and patient waiting, I finally welcomed a structural trend rebound on August 5!

My current positions have turned fully profitable, maintaining a gold allocation of 10%~20%. I strictly execute a "buy low and sell high based on technical analysis" strategy. Today, combining the highly discussed new Singapore Exchange (SGX) Gold/Silver DLC (Daily Leveraged Certificate) on Longbridge, let's dive deep into my underlying logic.

1. Why be bullish on gold for the long term?

Structural weakening of US dollar credit: This is a fundamental mega-trend spanning years to decades. The shift in the global financial order from unipolarity to multipolarity is an irreversible fact.

Unconscious "bottom-position buying" by central banks: The continuous structural accumulation by global central banks forms the most solid stepping stone for the gold price floor.

Awaiting the "east wind" from hot money: Central banks set the stage, while hot money performs. The current rise is primarily driven by fundamentals. Once international hot money gathers strength to enter and "add fuel to the fire," it could easily replicate the raging bull market of last year.

2. Why is gold suitable for swing trading?

When choosing between precious metals, I personally prefer gold over silver for two reasons:

Control volatility, pursue compound interest: Silver has high elasticity, but high volatility is not a catalyst for most people; it is a risk. "Water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it." The essence of investment compounding is stable profit × time. Gold's moderate volatility allows for more peaceful sleep.

No major shareholders, purely speaking through technicals: As one of the world's largest commodity benchmarks, gold has no single institution or hot money capable of manipulating it long-term. It lacks the tricks of "major shareholder reductions," making technical indicators like MACD, RSI, and trendlines exceptionally clean and effective on gold charts, making it highly suitable for right-side timing and swing buying.

3. Views on Gold/Silver DLC (Leveraged Derivatives)

To be honest, I hadn't paid much attention to DLCs before, but the new Gold and Silver DLCs launched by the Singapore Exchange (SGX) have indeed caught my eye:

Advantage: Settlement directly in Singapore Dollars (SGD), with no exchange rate loss.

⚠️ Risk: 5x intraday leverage, clearly a double-edged sword. The 5x leverage amplifies both returns and volatility risks. Coupled with the DLC's daily reset mechanism, stubbornly holding positions in a volatile market can easily lead to decay. This requires the energy to watch the markets all day.

My core positions remain focused on long-term spot/ETF holdings. However, I will add the SGX Gold DLC to my watchlist. When MACD gives excellent overbought/oversold signals, or when betting on short-term breakouts, I will use a small portion of light position to play with 5x leveraged longs. I will be even more cautious about shorts, as this might serve as a very efficient supplement for yield enhancement.

The market never lacks opportunities. Only by controlling risk and maintaining moderate position sizes can one go far in this market!

What instruments are you using for gold? Would you try using DLC for short-term hedging or leveraging returns? Welcome to discuss in the comments!

#DLC #Gold #Silver #GoldTrading #TechnicalAnalysis

Tensions in the Strait of Hormuz continue to escalate, with shipping traffic at a three-month low and conflicting signals from both sides regarding an end to the conflict; oil prices still fell 2.1% to $87.07.

Gold saw slight gains, while the US dollar remained weak.

The situation is not optimistic; hold some cash and keep safe-haven precious metals on hand for emergencies.

The inflation numbers are out and both CPI and PPI are looking favourable. The markets like them and are trending higher as a result.

The overall market is taking the inflation numbers in its stride and liking it. Price action leans bullish and the number of bears still being around and vocal gives it an even more bullish nuance.

With CPI and PPI out of the way, it is back to earnings for the remaining companies. Interesting to see if there will be a pullback from all time highs or we go higher from here.

I still like Yangzijiang Shipbuilding (SGX: BS6) fundamentally, but at today’s ~S$4.66 I would not chase it with a large purchase. The price has moved very quickly after the excellent 1H26 results. As of 10:51am today, it was around S$4.66, already close to its recent high.

$Singapore Exchange (S68.SG) → Net revenue growth of 13.9% in FY2026, adjusted net profit growth of 24.6%, and a 52% dividend increase to SGD 0.57.

S68 is a stock I've always been bullish on. With Singapore's economic growth, stock market activity is currently surging, with many local stocks and ETFs being very active.