Monthly Market Wrap: The STI broke above 4,500 and set three consecutive all-time highs in Nov

Date: December 1, 2025

• All-time highs for DBS, OCBC & Singtel pushed STI to new records
• The STI gained 2.1% for the month, 1.2% for the final week
• Wall Street rocked by AI scepticism but later recovered – though not totally
• JPMorgan set S$70 target price for DBS
• Yangzijiang Maritime debuted and FTSE ST All-Share inclusion
• Surgical tech firm UltraGreen.ai applied for US$377.1m IPO on mainboard
• Cordlife ordered to stop collecting new cord blood
• Couple caught in 99-1 property transaction sue salesperson, PropNex and law firm for S$586,172
• Factory output surged 29.1% in October beating expectations

 

New highs for the index

It was another stellar month for the local market with the Straits Times Index rising to three successive all-time highs between 11-13 Nov, the last being 4,575.91.

Underpinning the rise were solid 3Q results announced by DBS, OCBC and Singtel that sent their shares to all-time highs of their own. In contrast, UOB came under pressure after it announced higher-than-expected provisions that dragged its profits lower.

Also adding to the optimism were the latest measures unveiled under the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Equity Market Development Programme (EQDP) which included a listing bridge with Nasdaq and S$2.85b allocated to a second batch of fund managers to invest in small-to-mid caps.

For the month, the index gained 95 points or 2.1% at 4,523.96, more than half coming in the final week when the STI added 54 points or 1.2%.

Wall Street rocked by AI scepticism but later recovered – though not totally

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell almost 3.5% in the first two weeks of Nov losing roughly US$1.74 trillion in market value, mainly because of doubts over the direction of interest rates and the sky-high valuations attributed to artificial intelligence (AI) stocks.

Hopes for a rate cut this month amidst the release of benign economic data helped lift the major indices on the second half.

The three main indexes posted weekly gains. The S&P 500 rose 3.73%, the Nasdaq gained 4.91%, and the Dow climbed 3.18%. The S&P and the Dow swung to marginally positive for the month after Friday’s prices settled.

But the Nasdaq closed down 1.51% for the month, reflecting growing concerns about stretched AI and tech valuations, with investors taking profits and reducing exposure.

As of Friday, the market was pricing in an 86% chance of a rate cut at the 10 Dec Federal Open Markets Committee meeting.

JPMorgan set S$70 target price for DBS

Local banks and the Singapore Exchange (SGX) are set for “significant improvement in value creation” over a multi-year period, amid shifts to the financial sector that are currently “under-appreciated”, said JPMorgan in a Friday note.

It assigned DBS a December 2026 price target of S$70, and upgraded its rating on the SGX to “overweight”; OCBC was also “overweight”, and UOB, “neutral”.

JPMorgan analysts Harsh Wardhan Modi and Daniel Andrew Tan believe the counter is likely to re-rate to a point where the stock becomes “unjustifiably expensive”.

They noted that DBS has restructured towards a lower loan intensity; its 2027 loans-to-assets ratio is estimated to stand at 48%, from 63% in 2017.

Modi and Tan said: “Higher rates, coupled with deposit franchise, should allow (DBS) to sustain net interest income (NII) growth over the next five years, on top of a 2 per cent NII compound annual growth rate in 2024 to 2027’’.

Noting that DBS’ 2026 earnings per share (EPS) is expected to “mark a low” for the next five years, the analysts said that its regular distribution per share (DPS) of S$2.88 and part of its special dividend may remain intact.

“The bank can potentially pay S$3.30 DPS for years to come, in our estimates,” they said.

Yangzijiang Maritime debuted and FTSE ST All-Share inclusion

In a 24 Nov Market Update, SGX Research noted that Yangzijiang Maritime Development ended its Nov 21 debut at S$0.67, up 12% from the S$0.60 offer price that raised S$5.2 million in the spin-off from Yangzijiang Financial Holding.

“The stock is likely to be designated to the Financial Services Sector given the principal business of the Group comprises the (a) Maritime Business, (b) Cash Management and the (c) Other Non-Maritime Investments as per the introductory document. It has joined the FTSE ST Mid & Small Cap Index, with a 1.6% weight’’ said SGX Research.

It added that this means it is not just the trio of banks that have increased their combined FTSE ST All-Share Index since 2019.

“The combined weightage of Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, Yangzijiang Financial and Yangzijiang Maritime Development in the FTSE ST All-Share Index is now at 2.36%, up more than threefold from Yangzijiang Shipbuilding’s sole 0.65% weight at the end of 2019’’.

Surgical tech firm UltraGreen.ai applied for US$377.1m IPO on mainboard

Medical imaging and surgery technology firm UltraGreen.ai is seeking a listing on the mainboard of the Singapore Exchange (SGX), after it registered its prospectus with the Monetary Authority of Singapore last week.

“I don’t think there’s ever a good time or bad time to do an IPO (initial public offering) because markets change so dynamically,” said Ravinder Sajwan, CEO of UltraGreen.ai. “But I think the most important thing to understand from our perspective is that we are looking at an Asian expansion, and you have to put your foot in the door and say ‘let’s do it’’’.

The company – which develops fluorescence-guided surgery technology, offers fluorescence imaging services and supplies indocyanine green dyes used in surgical procedures – has also made an application with SGX to list its shares on Dec 3.

UltraGreen.ai is offering 112.1 million shares at US$1.45 or S$1.892 apiece, comprising 103.4 million new shares and 8.6 million vendor shares, with the aim of raising net proceeds of US$141.8 million or gross proceeds of US$150 million. Together with the cornerstone shares, the IPO offering will raise about US$377.1 million.

The offering shares comprise around 106.2 million placement shares, which will be offered via an international placement to institutional and other investors, and 5.9 million shares that will be offered via a public offer in Singapore.

Separate from the offering, some 163.8 million cornerstone shares will be sold to cornerstone investors, though the company will not receive proceeds from this.

Net proceeds from the offering and sale of cornerstone shares are estimated to be about US$377.1 million, but the company will receive only about US$141.8 million.

Cordlife ordered to stop collecting new cord blood

Embattled cord-blood bank Cordlife received a notice from the Ministry of Health (MOH) to stop collecting, testing, processing and/or storing new cord blood, effective Wednesday, 26 Nov.

This means that the group has been suspended from collecting new cord-blood units (CBUs).  Cordlife will be permitted only to store existing CBUs, while performing limited actions in relation to them.

These actions include facilitating the transfer of existing CBUs to other cord-blood banks, and disposal of such existing CBUs as per instructions from the group’s clients.

According to MOH, the conditions will remain in force even if the company’s licence is renewed for one year in January 2026, and until Cordlife demonstrates the ability to consistently meet the regulatory requirements for cord-blood banking services.

This notice of regulatory action comes with MOH’s assessment that Cordlife had not adequately addressed the concerns raised during the ministry’s mid-point audit in July, to continue providing its cord-blood banking service in a “safe, clinically and ethically appropriate manner”.

Couple caught in 99-1 property transaction sue salesperson, PropNex and law firm for S$586,172

A PropNex subsidiary has been sued, along with its salesperson and a law firm, over a so-called “99-1” property transaction, by a couple who allege a breach of duty by the three parties.

The couple are claiming S$586,172, the amount in additional tax and surcharge that the taxman had asked them to pay, for having avoided paying the relevant stamp duty for their purchase of a condo unit.

Neo Say Chuan, 47, and his wife Tiong Bock Lian, 43, are represented by WongPartnership’s Gavin Neo. They have named PropNex Realty, salesperson Don Tay and Anthony Law Corporation as defendants in the lawsuit.

The claimants identified Tay as an agent of PropNex Realty, but the agency, in its defence, has denied he is one. It instead described him as an “independent contractor’’.

The Neos claim that Tay told them that 99-1 deals were legitimate and legal, and that Anthony Law Corporation, which handled the transaction, failed to inform them that the arrangement was unlawful or could be viewed as an illegal act of avoiding stamp duty.

Tay and Anthony Law Corporation have said they would contest the claims against them, and their defences are pending.

Rajah & Tann Singapore is acting for PropNex Realty, Allen & Gledhill for Anthony Law Corporation, and Withers KhattarWong, for Tay. A case conference will take place on Dec 23.

This case is PropNex Realty’s third reported lawsuit involving 99-1 transactions.

The first reported case in which the agency is being sued for about S$1.2 million, is pending.

PropNex Realty’s parent announced earlier that the second reported lawsuit, involving a claim of about S$850,000 has been withdrawn, for reasons that have not been made public.

Factory output surged 29.1% in October beating expectations

Singapore’s factory output jumped 29.1% year on year in October on the back of a surge in pharmaceutical manufacturing, the largest increase since November 2010, when Singapore’s economy rebounded after the US sub-prime crisis.

It also accelerated from the previous month’s rally, and far exceeded the expectations of private-sector economists, who had pencilled in a 6.7% year-on-year increase, based on a Bloomberg poll.

Excluding typically volatile biomedical manufacturing, industrial production in October expanded 15.8% year on year.

DBS senior economist Chua Han Teng was quoted by the Business Times: “The manufacturing sector has started the final quarter of 2025 on a solid footing, demonstrating continued resilience from the first three quarters of the year, despite ongoing trade uncertainties stemming from the US tariff roller coaster’’.

UOB associate economist Jester Koh was quoted saying he sees further upside risks to his full-year gross domestic product outlook of 4.4%.

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