Singapore corporates’ 2Q23 / 1H23 earnings tabulated in android app

The 2Q23 earning results of our three local banks are tabulated below:

For more results tabulation including US mkt stocks, there is an android app “Lim & Tan SGX fundflow CFA Cal” available for free download:

App bundled with a free CFA calculator
plus ABSD, monthly mortgage loan repayment calculations etc.

• see steps to download the android app from your mobile phone -> google play store
• see examples of a sample housing loan calculation answers
  written by
  George Seah Singapore
  佘文发硕士
  (for my blog)

Markets sell off after Fitch downgraded US treasury debt ratings.

The market was caught off-guard this week when Fitch did the right thing to fend off pressures from The White House, and went ahead to downgrade US debt ratings to AA+ (from its AAA rating). With this downgrade, US government bonds’ credit ratings now are worse than Canada’s. Both Larry Summers and Janet Yellen protested. These came at a time when US is trying to sell astronomical amount of various long-tenure treasuries to fund US government’s spending.
While nine sovereign debts are still keeping their triple-agency top ratings for now. Singapore, Australia, Germany are among these gold standards.
This week also saw oil price surged after Saudi and Russian extended their oil production cut till end Sept 2023. US’s June non-farm payroll still showing a resilient US economy, with wage growth higher than analysts’ expectation.  With 84% of S&P500 companies announced their results to date, about 80% of them reported better earnings. I have compiled selected companies’ earnings (both US and SGX listed counters) and uploaded to my android App (“Lim & Tan SGX fundflow CFA cal”).   I also updated the ABSD calculator with the latest property cooling measures with effect from 27 Apr 2023.  Please feel free to explore it (available for free download from your mobile phone google play store).
Lastly, US market consensus now expect no further FOMC rate hike nor US economic recession in 2023.
written by George Seah Singapore
佘文发硕士
(for my blog)

投资若是久长时， 又岂在朝朝暮暮？

written by George Seah Singapore 佘文发硕士
(for my blog)

The 2023 “sell in May” narrative applies to …

This year’s “sell in May” narrative applies to many of the asset classes tracked below:

For the US market, this year’s cliché become “hike in May and skip in June”.

After weeks in kerfuffle, the Biden administration and the bi-partisan congress have successfully dodged the debt ceiling credit default. US treasury will be auctioning off some US$600 billions of government bonds hastily in coming weeks to restore its dwindling cash pile. But the sudden devaluation of Asian currencies (especially Yuan and Yen) already dragged their economies into an “El Niño effect”： The Hong Kong HSI descended into its bear market subterranean while the Japanese Nikkei 225 and TOPIX indices’ bull run are reaching their Zenith after 33 years.
Now that the US debt ceiling storm has passed unscathed, will the bipolar Asian market conditions normalized next week?
It looks highly likely so.

written by George Seah Singapore
佘文发硕士
(for my blog)

US is approaching its X-date on 5 June 2023

US is fast approaching its debt ceiling of US$31.4 Trillion estimated by 5 June 2023.
The last time they reached the X-date was during the Obama era back in 2011.
The same old possibilities were explored too, including minting a Trillion dollar coin, or invoking the 14th amendment. But none seems to be feasible without legally challenged in court.
So the 80+ year old US President Biden finally came to the reality at the eleven hour to see Kevin McCarthy, the republican controlled house leader, to arrive at a compromised deal.
The congress and the senate will be voting the 99-page deal respectively before this Sunday and are expected to be challenged in both chambers.

This time round, there is no one piece of good international news in sight:

• The Ukraine-Russia war is still on-going and escalating,
• US-China trade war is virtually not in any meaningful talking term,
• Inflations in many regions are still at more than double from their long term target,
• Interest rates worldwide is still at 30+ year high and no sign of normalizing it anytime soon.
• Manufacturing PMIs worldwide is mostly contracting.
• The earth is running out of time to decarbonize to reach the Paris climate accord etc…

Meanwhile in the tech space, hedge fund investors managed to hype up semiconductor chips in generative transformation AI, after metaverse and decentralized cryptocurrencies ran out of steam. Even the ever-bullish Cathie Wood felt the valuation of Nvidia is too high, after it touched the $1 Trillion market capitalization at its peak near $420 a share last night.

At home, the STI price chart has since turned negative for the year, and it dips below its resistance of 3180 today intraday. STI will be trading range bound between 3071 and 3280 before the US debt ceiling is fully resolved.

written by George Seah
佘文发硕士
(for my blog)

MAS kept the S$NEER policy unchanged in their Apr2023 review

Dow Jones index, S&P500 and Nasdaq were up in tandem last week.
In fact all three indices have gone up 4 weeks asynchronously in the past 5 weeks, showing the over-optimistic sentiment in the US equity markets.
Drawing strength from the good banking earnings last Friday; the weaker than expected PPI data and retail sales figures; and the better than expected Industrial output in March2023. Analysts are predicting a mild recession for the US economy with inflation already rolling off the peak, prompting the Fed to pivot its fed fund rate by 2H2023.
In the bond market, investors continued to overweight long dated treasury bonds.
The WTI crude oil price was up in the past four weeks and have managed to closed above USD $80 a barrel in the past two weeks.
Gold spot price also managed to closed above $2000 an ounce last week, consolidating its recent bull run amid the weakening USD.

At home, MAS has kept its S$NEER policy unchanged, opting not to continue to strengthen the SGD. This has caught many economists by surprise and quickly pointing to a potential outflow of the foreign hot money in the coming weeks.
Below is the closing numbers last week for some of the major asset classes:

Separately Our 1Q2023 advanced GDP reading last week was also below expectation. Our NODX for Mar2023 announced today was down -8.3% Month on Month. All these have set a cautious tone in local bourse, with the Institutional investors’ net outflow of -S$155 million last week (according to SGX’s data).

written by George Seah Singapore，佘文发硕士
(for my blog)

US led banking woes ebbed for now

This month saw the regional banking woes emanating from a U.S. led tightening Financial conditions that shatter the credit markets worldwide.
It started with three U.S. banking failures in contiguous. They are:

• Silvergate (A crypto currencies lending bank)
• SVB (A start-up biz lending bank in Silicon Valley)
• Signature Bank (A commercial and crypto currencies lending bank)

These happened after U.S. Federal Reserve raised its FFR in 8 consecutive meetings before Mar2023. FOMC then went ahead to raise another 25bps this month to reach 5%, amid this regional banking distress.
Elon Musk had called for a -50bps rate cut instead but FOMC still acted unanimously based on its data driven indicators and dual mandates.

The persistently harsh financial conditions plus these banking induced risk-off sentiment quickly spread to other regional banks while U.S./ European regulators acted decisively with backstop measures to restore banking confidence:

• UBS was “offered” to buy out Credit Suisse.
• First Citizens bank was “offered” to buy out SVB.
• Deutsche Bank and few other banks (First Republic Bank, Charles Schwab bank etc.) were in the limelight when their share prices were badly battered.

The huge loss by AT1 investors, the Saudi Arabic SNB, and these banking mergers also led to some quitting of top C-suite executives.
At the time of this writing, equity markets have returned to its calm for now. S&P500 has regained its 4000 handle, closing above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq 100 also cleared the bull market hurdle, after going up > 20% from its December 2022 low.

written by
George Seah Singapore 佘文发硕士
(for my blog)

本地三大银行完成上季度业绩报告：SG banks’ earning results and their proposed dividends

上周是本地三大银行完成上季度业绩报告的一周。在2022年的最后一个季度里，
大华银行（UOB）净盈利是11.5亿新元；建议派发年终股息 $0.75；
华侨银行（OCBC）净盈利是13亿新元；建议派发年终股息 $0.40；
星展银行集团（DBS Group）表现最佳；净盈利高达23亿新元。建议派发（年终+特别）股息总计 $0.92。
然而三大银行在利多出尽后，股价并没有继续推动海峡时报指数攀升，STI 一周反而下滑了-1.4%。另一方面，因美国一系列经济数据报告强劲，引发联储大幅加息的担忧，影响了投资者的情绪（risk off)，上周收市也让美股出现了拐点而集体下跌。总结一周重点关注的各项指标表现，列表如下：

其中，美国银行经济师相当悲观看空美股，认为标普500股指接下来数周可能下试 3800点。但大多数华尔街分析师则相对乐观，最新出炉的调查显示：接近60%认为美国今年至少能实现经济软着陆，甚至能避过季对季经济衰退（当然任何突发黑天鹅事件除外）。
Questions are:
Who is piloting the world economy? (Xi or Biden?)
Who is shooting it down? (FOMC meetings or Geopolitical events?)

written by
George Seah Singapore 佘文发硕士
(for my blog)
updated: 28 Feb 2023 at 7am.

Market performances in the week greeting the CNY of Rabbit

Market performances in the week greeting the CNY of Rabbit
癸卯年市场迎春

For Corporates’ earnings and a portfolio of stock pick 2023 on Singapore stocks listed in SGX and its performance so far, download the “George Seah” app available free in google play store in your android mobile phone. (Latest version updated 29 Jan 2023)
written by
George Seah Singapore
佘文发硕士
(for my blog)

2022年的世上本无事，庸人自扰之

2022 是一个奇特的虎年，世界局势动荡，皆因庸人自扰再次濒临二战前的危险边缘：

• 先是乌克兰乘着德国前总理默克尔下台之际，要求美国火速支持它加入北约，把苏联解体之后的欧、美、俄军事平衡的天枰更加西倾。这一举动打破了欧洲战略现状（status quo），触碰了俄罗斯的底线。但那之后，俄罗斯进军攻占乌东顿巴斯地区是更大的人为错误。因美乌在吸取了上次克里米亚失守的教训后，已然做足了准备，结果冲突一发不可收拾，美欧仅以提供武器参战，避过了世界第三战。但俄乌战事至今也已进入了胶着的第11个月份。
• 美国对中国大陆加剧科技封锁，导致合作双赢的国际次序及产业链脱钩。而美欧日等对俄罗斯的全面制裁，也使欧洲陷入油气断供危机。美企也因纷纷撤离中俄市场，加上各国央行同步大幅加息以对抗通胀，企业营利大受影响，股债双杀。美股如标普500至今仍大跌近-20%，纳斯达克指数也跌了逾-30%，十年期美国国债利率也“四”而复返。
• 美国国会众议长佩洛西窜访台湾，中国虽严正警告，但最终没有把局势升温，保住了台海稳定，虽说是逃过一劫，但双方已撕破了脸，后续仍危机重重。
• 加密货币如Terra, Luna, FTT等“庸币自纵”崩盘，导致Three Arrows Capital, FTX 等公司停止交易或停牌等候清盘，甚至殃及对冲基金投资，让市场对去中心化的操作蒙上阴影。

随着标普500企业盈利预期下滑，一旦美国经济陷入衰退，标普500指数在2023年就有望下试3600点。希望大国各方保持克制，让2023年安稳度过一个预期高至5%的联邦基金利率时代。
written by
George Seah Singapore 佘文发硕士
(for my blog)