SGX Trading Rules—Securities Market

This article introduces the core trading mechanism and rules of the Singapore Exchange (SGX), covering trading hours, designated investment product requirements, settlement cycles, and various special trading arrangements, providing comprehensive operational guidance for investors trading on SGX.

1. Singapore Securities Market -Trading Hours (SG time)

Except for public holidays, the Singapore stock market generally trades from Monday to Friday. The trading hours are as follows:

Full-day trading

*The Pre-Open/Close phase ends randomly at any time within this one minute window and the Non-Cancel phase begins immediately after.

Half-day Trading

*The Pre-Open/Close phase ends randomly at any time within this one minute window and the Non-Cancel phase begins immediately after.

Public Holidays

The Singapore stock market has a trading calendar that follows Singapore public holidays which is available on the Ministry of Manpower website.

2. Specified Investment Products (“SIPs”)

SIPs are complex financial products that have structures, features and risks that are more difficult to understand.

From January 2012, as part of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s initiatives to provide trading safeguards to retail investors, we need to ensure that investors understand the complexities and risks involved in trading SIPs.

Hence we are require to conduct the following reviews based on your declaration of your educational qualifications, work experience and investment or trading experience before offering any SIPs to you:

• Customer Account Review (“CAR”) for Listed SIPs;
• Customer Knowledge Assessment (“CKA”) for Unlisted SIPs

3. Requirements to trade Specified Investment Products (“SIPs”)

To trade in SIPs, you must fulfil any of these criteria:

If you do not fulfil any of the requirements above, you may:

• Access the SGX Online Education Program and complete the Online Education Program – Specified Investment Produucts in order to fulfil the requirements for your CAR review.
• Access the ABS-SAS E-Learning Portal for Investors and complete the respective modules that you will be trading in in order to fulfil the requirements for your CKA review.

4. Day trading

Day trading is a mode of trading where a client buys or sells a certain stock or stock option position on the same trading day. Day trading is often referred to as T+0 trading. When you open an account with Long Bridge Securities Pte. Ltd. (LBS) you will be able to perform unlimited day trading, subject to credit limits set.

5. Settlement Rules

Trades done on the securities market in SGX-ST products are settled on T+2 basis. This means trades done on trade date (T date) will be settled on T+2, 2 days after the trade date. If the 2nd day falls on a public holiday, then it will be settled on the next business day.

6. Dual Currency Trading

Dual currency trading is available for selected securities counters, offering you an option to trade in two different currencies (e.g. USD and SGD), for a listed security. There is no new offer of shares. Currently, SGX-ST offers dual currency trading in SGD, USD, EUR, HKD, AUD and CNY. You can use your Trading Account with LBS to trade in dual currency counters.

As the shares/units holdings are custodised in a consolidated pool at the depository, you can buy one currency counter and sell in the other currency counter. However, contra trade between the two currency counters is not possible as they are listed as separate trading counters. Where you have Margin Facilities with LBS, please check to ensure that the counter is a marginable counter.

The market value of the listed security with dual currency trading functionality will be computed based on the last done price of the Primary Currency counter and the total number of unit holdings of the listed security. If you have any Margin Facilities with LBS, this will be subjected to the T&Cs of the Margin Facility offered to you.

Price transparency
You will know the exact transacted price in the respective currency when your order for the dual currency counter has been executed.

Risks Involved
In certain cases, the price relationship and difference between two counters of a listed security might not necessarily be the foreign exchange rate between both counters due to market forces.

Corporate Actions
Corporate actions such as dividend distribution will usually be given in the Primary Currency of the listed security, although the issuer of the security may elect another currency or offer currency election to its shareholders. The Primary Currency is usually the currency in which the security is issued unless otherwise stated by listed company.

7. Dual Class Shares

Companies with a dual class share (“DCS”) structure offer two classes of shares. Shares in one class carry one vote (“OV shares”) while shares in another class carry multiple votes (“MV shares”). Only the OV shares are listed and available for trading via SGX-ST.

Each OV share in a DCS company will have proportionately lower voting rights than each MV share. It is therefore important that these OV shares are clearly identified to market participants. OV shares of companies listed on SGX with a DCS structure will therefore carry a “DC” indicator at the instrument level.

These OV shares will trade in the same manner as ordinary shares of any company listed and traded on SGX. Market data on these shares will be disseminated to the usual participants, including brokers.

The MV shares of DCS companies are not tradeable on SGX and hence will not have any market data which means SGX won’t display any price or other data on these MV shares. If you require more information on these MV shares, please contact the listed company directly.

8. Board Lot Sizes

The standard board lot size is 100 units. However, certain products such as Special Purpose Acquisition Companies Warrants (SPAC Warrants), some Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), American Depository Receipts (ADRs), and fixed income instruments may trade in other board lot sizes.

Board lot sizes of various products

*Effective 17-Jan-2022, all SGX listed ETFs will be traded in board lot size of 1 unit.

SGX also has a Unit Share Market to facilitate the trading of odd lots in any quantity less than one board lot of the underlying securities in the Ready Market.

9. Minimum Board Size and Price Limits for SGX-ST Products (securities market)

The minimum bid size is also known as tick size and represents the smallest price increment that the price of a security can change.

Stocks, REITs, Business Trusts, Company Warrants

Structured Warrants and Daily Leverage Certificates

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Exchange Traded Notes

Debentures, Bonds, Loan Stocks & Preference Shares

Securities denominated in Hong Kong Dollar

Securities denominated in Japanese Yen

10. Circuit Breakers

SGX’s dynamic circuit breaker in the securities market guards against disorderly situations in the face of rapid and unchecked market movements. It gives you time to assimilate incoming information and make informed choices during periods of high market volatility.

The circuit breaker covers:

• Straits Times Index component stocks/units
• MSCI Singapore Index component stocks/units
• The following products with a first reference price at or exceeding $0.50
• Stocks/units
• Stapled securities
• Funds
• Exchange traded funds
• Exchange traded notes

How it works
The circuit breaker is activated when an incoming order could potentially match an existing order in the order book at a price outside the circuit breaker price band .

When this occurs, a five-minute cooling-off period is triggered, the incoming order is rejected and will not be matched at a price outside the price band. During the cooling-off period, trading can still take place within the price bands. All existing orders will not be affected and new orders can continue to be placed in the order book as long as they do not result in the potential matching of trades outside the price band. If there are no trades done during the cooling-off period, the first trade after the cooling-off period will not be subject to the circuit breaker.

The price band comprises of an upper and lower price limit based on a deviation of 10% from the applicable reference price. Trades at or within the limits will not activate the circuit breaker.

The dynamic reference price during continuous trading is the last traded price as of five minutes prior to each potential trade. If no trades were executed in the trading day’s continuous matching phase, the dynamic reference price will be the trading day’s first reference price. If the circuit breaker is triggered and no trades are done during the cooling-off period, the price of the first trade will serve as the reference price for the five minutes following the trade.

In operation during the continuous trading phase to allow for efficient and accurate price discovery, the circuit breaker is not applicable during the following sessions:

• Opening routine
• Mid-day break
• Closing routine
• First trading day of newly listed instruments

For more information, please refer to SGX-ST Regulatory Notice 8.14.1 – Circuit Breaker.

Key takeaways:

• Trading hours: Full-day trading consists of two continuous sessions (morning and afternoon), including Pre-Open, continuous trading, and Trade at Close sessions; for half-day trading, the market is only open in the morning.
• Designated investment products: Trading complex products like ETFs and options requires meeting specific education/work experience requirements or passing dedicated tests.
• Settlement rules: T+2, postponed on holidays.
• Special mechanisms:
  • Dual currency trading supports multi-currency settlement for the same security.
  • Companies with dual-class share structures are only allowed to list and trade shares with one-share-one-vote on SGX.
  • During periods of high market volatility, the circuit breaker mechanism provides time for investors to reassess and make informed choices.
• Trading unit: The standard board lot size for stocks is 100 shares; other rules apply to products like ETFs and bonds.
• Quotation specification: Minimum tick sizes vary across securities in different price ranges.

Disclosures

This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.