Muted activity ahead of Fed chief’s inflation comments, STI up modest 0.2%

Date: August 31, 2026

• The STI added 11 points or 0.2% at 5,699.93 in cautious trading
• A hawkish Warsh speech pointed to a US rate hike this year
• OUE unit proposes to privatise OUE Healthcare in S$0.05 per share scheme deal
• SingPost Q1 operating profit up 55.2% at S$4.1 million on improved costs
• Thomson Medical narrowed H2 net loss to S$19.5 million on lower goodwill impairment, finance costs
• Frencken proposes S$100 million placement to fund expansion, potential M&A
• Nvidia added US$442 billion following robust forecast in second biggest ever stock surge

 

A firm week for the banks means a firm week for the STI

Driven mainly by the banks, the Straits Times Index (STI) rose by about 11 points or 0.2% to 5,699.93 over the week, most probably ahead of Friday’s speech by US Federal Reserve chief Kevin Warsh at Jackson Hole.

Average daily turnover was a relatively muted S$1.6b, versus S$2b the week before and S$2.8b the week before that.

Over the five days DBS added S$0.15 at S$76.15, OCBC rose S$0.07 to S$31.07 and UOB gained S$0.25 at S$40.78.

 

A hawkish Warsh speech points to a US rate hike this year

Inflation has cooled in recent months as gasoline prices have retreated, but Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh said Friday that isn’t enough to prove price growth trends are heading in the right direction.

In prepared remarks for his keynote address at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, Warsh discussed his views on the current economic conditions.

He noted that inflation has been durably above the central bank’s 2% target for 65 months—despite some improvement in two key metrics, the personal consumption expenditures price index and the consumer price index.

“While this summer’s PCE and CPI readings were better than expected, they do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved,” Warsh said.

Markets saw the speech as a signal, albeit an oblique one, that a September interest-rate hike was back on the table. Traders had the odds of the FOMC raising interest rates from the current range of 3.50% to 3.75% at 60% on Friday, up from 35% the day before.

 

OUE unit proposes to privatise OUE Healthcare in S$0.05 per share scheme deal

Mainboard-listed OUE’s wholly owned subsidiary, Treasure International Holdings, has proposed the privatisation of Catalist-listed regional healthcare group OUE Healthcare (OUEH) via a scheme of arrangement at S$0.050 per share in cash.

OUEH is a subsidiary of the offerer and OUE. Treasure International Holdings, together with its concert parties, currently holds an aggregate 89.68% stake in OUEH.

The scheme consideration values the offer at a 28.2% premium to OUEH’s last transacted price of S$0.039 on Aug 21, the last full trading day prior to the announcement.

Additionally, the buyout price represents a 2.5% premium over OUEH’s latest unaudited net asset value per share of S$0.0488 as at Jun 30. The scheme consideration is also higher than the closing price of the shares over the entire past five-year period.

Privatisation is expected to allow management greater flexibility to execute long-term strategies, without being constrained by the shorter-term expectations of the public market.

“Further, the company’s China operations are currently ramping up and may require time to stabilise,” a separate joint release stated.

 

SingPost Q1 operating profit up 55.2% at S$4.1 million on improved costs

Singapore Post (SingPost) recorded an operating profit of S$4.1 million for its first financial quarter ended Jun 30, up 55.2% from S$2.6 million in the corresponding year-ago period.

The growth was driven primarily by cost management, lower labour-related costs and efficiency gains, it said in a business update. Operating profit margin expanded to 4.4% from 2.8% a year earlier.

The prior-year operating profit was restated from S$3.4 million to S$2.6 million following recent divestments, establishing a more like-for-like baseline.

Revenue for Q1 fell marginally by 0.9% year on year to S$93.4 million.

SingPost said revenue gains in its post office network and property assets segments largely counterbalanced a mixed performance in logistics and letters.

Within logistics and letters, domestic parcel volume expanded 36.5% year on year to 7.1 million items, helping to mitigate continued declines in mail volume and international business headwinds. Domestic mail volume fell 16.2% to 67.3 million items.

 

Thomson Medical narrows H2 net loss to S$19.5 million on lower goodwill impairment, finance costs

Healthcare operator Thomson Medical narrowed its net loss for the second half ended Jun 30 to S$19.5 million, from a net loss of S$34.7 million for the previous corresponding period.

The lower net loss came on the back of a 48.7% reduction in other operating expenses to S$61.3 million, from S$119.4 million a year earlier.

The group attributed this mainly to a lower impairment loss on goodwill arising from its acquisition of Far East Medical Vietnam. This amounted to S$15.2 million, compared with S$75.1 million previously.

Thomson Medical’s net finance costs also fell 14.7% to S$23.2 million in H2, mainly due to lower interest rates.

Revenue rose 5.8% year on year to S$207 million, from S$195.6 million. Loss per share improved to S$0.00074, from S$0.00131 a year earlier.

No dividend was declared for FY2026, unchanged from the previous financial year, as the group intends to “conserve cash for its working capital needs and to fund any potential growth opportunities”.

 

Frencken proposes S$100 million placement to fund expansion, potential M&A

Tech solutions provider Frencken announced that it plans to raise S$100 million through a proposed placement of 44.1 million shares at S$2.2687 each.

The proposed placement share price is a 10% discount to the Aug 25 volume-weighted average price of S$2.5207.

The placement shares represent about 10.3% of the existing issued shares as at Thursday; the new shares will represent 9.3% of the enlarged number of issued shares following the completion of the placement.

Frencken – which manufactures high-precision components, modules and complete sub-systems for multinational companies – noted that the amount raised from the placement will go towards supporting the execution of the group’s business expansion.

These include investments to strengthen the group’s manufacturing capacity and the capacities of its mechatronics and advanced plastic solutions business divisions.

The mechatronics division, which includes the group semiconductor business, accounted for most of the group’s H1 FY2026 revenue. The division’s revenue for the half year was S$383.4 million – 90.1% of the group’s revenue at S$427.8 million.

Ninety per cent of the proceeds of the share placement – S$87.4 million after deducting fees – will cover the costs of business expansion and strengthen Frencken’s financial position.

The remaining 10% or roughly S$9.7 million after deducting fees, will be used as working capital requirements or may be used to repay bank borrowings, or both.

 

Nvidia adds US$442 billion following robust forecast in second biggest ever stock surge

Nvidia added US$442 billion to its market value on Thursday in the second-largest one-day gain by any stock in history.

Shares of the Santa Clara, California-based company jumped 8.7%, their biggest advance since April 2025, when the company was valued at less than half what it is now.

Nvidia is the largest company in the world, with a valuation around US$5.5 trillion.

The nearly half-a-trillion-dollar gain trails only Microsoft’s US$450b surge less than a month ago which followed blowout results. Thursday’s move follows a robust forecast by the company which reassured investors that growth related to artificial intelligence remains in full swing.

Nvidia said that revenue will expand about 70% next fiscal year, well above expectations for growth of around 45%, an upside surprise that recalled the early days of the AI boom that cemented the company as the central stock of the era.

Bloomberg Intelligence wrote that Nvidia’s “jaw-dropping” guide “implies more than US$100 billion of potential upside to current estimates.”

JPMorgan wrote that even though the outlook was much better than expected, it is likely still conservative, as it “explicitly characterised the outlook as supply-constrained, with unconstrained demand pacing materially higher.”