Serious Reddit Commentary on Singapore Stock Exchange

https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/2utj5l/sgx_retail_brokers_appeal_for_government_help/


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9

SGX retail brokers appeal for government help (self.singapore)

submitted 1 year ago by NutlessMonkey

OVER 1,000 remisiers and investors have come together to appeal to Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam to help them resolve a wide range of issues plaguing the industry.

In a Jan 15 letter to Mr Tharman, they expressed unhappiness with the state and direction of the local stock market and urged immediate changes. Titled "Urgent Measures Needed to Rebuild Confidence in the Singapore Stock Market", the letter was written by investment specialist at a local broking house S Nallakaruppan and carried 1,225 signatures, mostly from retail trading representatives (TRs).

The issues raised and remedies proposed include separating Singapore Exchange's regulatory and commercial roles, raising the public portion of an IPO, restoring investors' trust in the local bourse, reviewing onerous rules for "high-risk" products, and listing of government-linked companies such as PSA and Changi Airports International to add breadth and depth to the market.

Pointing to the dismal market conditions, the letter noted that annual trading volume has fallen 26 per cent over the past five years from S$387 billion during the exchange's FY2010 to S$286 billion in FY2014. It attributed the slump to a loss of confidence among the investing public after Singapore-listed China stocks crashed in 2008-2010, and after the penny stock rout of 2013.

To rebuild confidence, some of the key recommendations contained in the letter were:

issuing at least 25 per cent of shares in an IPO to the public; this would avoid the farce of initial public offerings turning into initial private offerings;

better rules for short selling disclosure;

rethinking regulations for sophisticated instruments;

setting up truly independent committees when consulting the public on proposed policy changes;

raising the quality bar for CPF Trustee stocks and lifting the limit for investment in equities from 35 to 80 per cent of the CPF Ordinary Account;

transferring long-suspended stocks with governance issues to a high-risk third board with cash upfront trading;

providing the market with regular updates on investigations such as the current probe into the October 2013 crash of LionGold, Blumont and Asiasons;

separating SGX's regulatory and commercial roles.

"In the haste to rebuild the Singapore bourse after the delisting of more than a hundred Malaysian Clob shares," the letter said, "listings from China were admitted with limited consideration given to important issues such as corporate governance and enforcement across borders."

Also mentioned was 2008's Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy that led the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to classify perceived higher risk products as Specified Investment Products and Excluded Investment Products, and to introduce stringent rules that require TRs and clients to sit for exams before trading these instruments.

"Singapore could be the only country in the world to have such rules," said the letter. "This has created a lot of confusion, resulting in many in the investing public staying out altogether. All these classifications should be removed and a simple one or two-page Risk Disclosure statement should be signed by the investing public before they are allowed to buy sophisticated products . . . we can educate the investing public about the various risks but we cannot regulate risk."

When contacted, Mr Nallakaruppan told BT that the stock market was in its worst state since he joined the industry 20 years ago, and it was the dire situation than prompted him to act. Many remisiers contacted by BT were familiar with the contents of the letter as many had signed it.

"For these many people to take the drastic step of signing a letter to the minister, it has to mean something is very wrong," said a dealer with a bank-based brokerage. "It's important to note that this is not a finger-pointing exercise, but a call for everyone to work together to bring about real improvements."

Jimmy Ho, president of the Singapore Society of Remisiers, pointed out that the number of signatures obtained was significant and that it represents almost half the society's members. "With the bread and butter of several thousand Singaporeans (remisiers, dealers and backroom support staff) and their families at stake, it is only fair that the situation . . . be brought to the government's attention."

Call to restore market lunch hour

THE Singapore Society of Remisiers (SOR), which had appealed to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) for help to reinstate the lunch break for the stock market, has been told that the ministry is unable to address its concerns.

"As remisiers are self-employed agents and as there is no employer-employee relationship with the Singapore Exchange Ltd, we wish to inform you that the ministry is unable to address your concerns under the Employment Act," said MOM.

"Your society may wish to advise remisiers to make arrangements for staggered lunch breaks which is a common practice adopted by service-related companies that have continuous operations. Nevertheless, we will forward a copy of your letter to the Singapore Exchange so that they can engage your society on the concerns raised."

In its Jan 15 letter to MOM, the society argued that having a lunch break is a "basic human right to meet a basic human need" and that it is unethical not to allow a break for lunch.

The SGX introduced continuous all-day trading in 2011, removing the 90-minute break which used to be in place from 12.30-2pm.

In its appeal, SOR pointed out that remisiers used to meet clients over lunch in order to determine client needs and build trust. Also, most other Asian markets pause for lunch, for example 12.30-2pm in Malaysia, 12-1pm in Hong Kong, 12.30-2pm in Thailand, and 11.30am-12.30pm in Japan.

It pointed out that markets like South Korea and Taiwan, which do not have lunch breaks, are open for shorter hours than the eight hours and 35 minutes here - six hours in South Korea, and four hours and 30 minutes in Taiwan.

(http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/stocks/remisiers-write-to-tharman-to-resolve-issues-plaguing-market)

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[–]hatuahOk lor 8 points 1 year ago

In the 1st place, SGX shouldn't even be listed. When companies are listed, their main focus is profit after tax to please their shareholders. The interests of their customers, IE investors are secondary.

Just look at the ABL saga which wiped out S$8b in just 3 days. They are still being traded actively and those that trade frequently will know that up till this day, these stocks are still being manipulated by the big boys.

And there are counters which I shall not name that are blatantly fooling around with investors. Announcing big news such as buying over million dollar magnesium mines or timber forests with guaranteed profits. Ramping up investor interests, only to call off the deal after the big boys have unloaded their shares and taken the profit.

Even blue chips such as Olam, Singpost and SMRT have rampant insider trading. Just look at their charts last year, they were already being heavily bought by the insiders prior to the announcement of the major announcements.

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[–]jswk 2 points 1 year ago

The point you made abt olam singpost and smrt is quite interesting. What are some of the major announcements you're referencing?

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[–]hatuahOk lor 5 points 1 year ago

Singpost: Ali baba took an 8% stake in Singpost. This obviously is good news and the share price soared after the official announcement. But prior to that, you can already tell from the chart that the share was being bought up by insiders who already knew about the announcement.

SMRT: Revision of the public transport infrastructure to allow the govt to own the public transport fixed assets such as buses and railways. Prior to the official announcement, the share price was creeping up as well.

Olam: Temasek taking up a bigger stake in Olam. Same thing, share price went up even before the official announcement.

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[–]NutlessMonkey 2 points 1 year ago

Not to mention Keppel Land. Thing ran up 2-3 days before the privatization offer by Keppel Corp.

The amount of information leaks on this exchange is amazing, and it's crazy that no one has been charged yet.

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[–]Razorwindsg 1 point 1 year ago

Cos it's hard to prove without an army of crazed journalists hunting down big boys daily lives...

Most companies only make employees sign the sox agreement and do elearning but hardly will enforce or reiterate the importance of non disclosure and non trading for related industry stocks.

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[–]hatuahOk lor 1 point 1 year ago

In recent years, I can only recall of one guy getting arrested for insider trading.

Obviously the big boys are still running unscathed. This guy merely bought 140 lots of 20+ cent share and he got arrested.

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[–]useme 1 point 1 year ago

When companies are listed, their main focus is profit after tax to please their shareholders. The interests of their customers, IE investors are secondary.

How are investors and shareholders different in this context? Am asking as a lay person.

Also, as far as I know, the problems you mentioned are present in every stock exchange in the world. Are you suggesting we should not have stock exchanges at all? Or is there some "model" stock exchange somewhere that the rest of the world can follow?

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[–]malaysianlah 2 points 1 year ago

I think he meant SGX the company shouldn't be listed. The body that administers the board shouldn't be under profit pressures.

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[–]useme 1 point 1 year ago

Ah, I see. Thank you.

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[–]dashrandomI'm basically a terrifying mirror. No wonder people want to lie 3 points 1 year ago

ELI5 What are the problems with SGX? I always thought we were one of the more stable stock exchanges.

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[–]hatuahOk lor 6 points 1 year ago

In 2013, there were 3 counters (Asiasons, Blumont & Liongold) that were being played up by this syndicate. Basically these 3 companies were penny stocks that didn't have much fundamental strength.

However, this group of guys came in an played the stock up. A buys the stock at 10 cents, B buys from A at 15 cents, C buys from B at 20 cents, A buys the stock back from C again at 25 cents. Effectively, there was no change in ownership of the stock as the ones playing were people from the same syndicate. Due to the phenomenal share price increase, normal retail investors were attracted by it and started buying the share at ridiculous prices as well.

Imagine a small loss making company with little assets to back them up being worth as much as blue chip firms like SMRT. IIRC, the peak share price of Blumont was around $2. SGX finally realised what was going on after many months of rampant manipulation and investigated the 3 firms.

After the investigation, the 3 counters plunged by S$8 billion in just 3 days. Obviously the investors got burnt and had to sell their other shares to pay up for the huge losses. As a result, almost the entire market crashed after that and most retail investors who got burnt stopped investing totally.

Ever since that incident, trading volume has dropped to record lows as investors' confidence in our local stocks is extremely low.

And to add on, google about S-Chip saga in Singapore. It's basically about firms from China listing on the SGX. But the horrifying part is that they are just using SGX as a market to scam investors. They create fraudulent financial statements by overstating their income and assets. Yes, the frauds were so well planned that the auditors couldn't detect them till a few years down the road.

After the auditors realised that there was fraud, they issue a public notification and SGX suspended trading of these shares. Basically, if you are a shareholder of such a firm, all your money will get stuck as you won't be able to sell the shares. And there was not just 1 incident but multiple incidents that occurred. How does one invests when they can't even trust the exchange?

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[–]bot882361 5 points 1 year ago

Short reply, look at the decline in the annual trading volume. Income of brokers and remisiers are directly linked to a percentage of that annual trading volume, depending on the market. I'm not sure what the market practice is for Singapore, but transaction costs can be about 0.5% to 1%. So their slice of the pie just shrank.

So to revive their income, they are trying to get two groups of people to start trading, institutions and retail.

Institutions typically follow the investment theme of the day, which happens to be avoid emerging markets and watch out of the taper. So they haven't been actively trading in the SGX which is actually a proxy stock market for a lot of regional companies looking for listing. Singapore itself lacks credible companies in the home front, so companies out of Indonesia, Malaysia and China are attracted to listing because listing rules are surprisingly more lax, and it lends greater credibility to international investors. Singapore was historically seen as a capital market where investors' protection was available among the other Southeast Asian countries (emerginc markets) which have rampant corruption and very little investor rights. But that image has eroded with the number of dubious China company listings and penny stock market.

Right now, institutional investors are preferring to invest directly into emerging markets without Singapore as proxy since there's very little credibility there.

As for the retail guys, this is even more laughable. Investor education there is terrible, among people with money, and the stock market isn't the only market that is looking for investors. I have noted other competing markets that are crazy, namely the private banking sector and retail bonds. The perception of bonds as a less risky investment product has misled these investors to look for safer returns in junk bonds which institutional investors will not even touch, yielding 5-year non-call 3 at 7% to 8%, against fixed deposit rates of below 1%. Best part is that these bonds are issued by familiar names in the market, companies that have appeared in the news very often and have a very good relationship with the media, but in fact, no one in their right mind will lend them money if they look at the company's financials. But because the private banking brokers are getting 1-2% rebates on selling these toxic goods, people have lapped them up.

So because the focus is elsewhere, there is very little interest in the traditional stock market, and the brokers are trying to restore confidence in it so that investors will start coming back. This is more symptomatic of a failed market, and there's a lot more that needs to be done.

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[–]malaysianlah 2 points 1 year ago

As a former auditor.. I hear horror stories of singapore listed companies with real dodgy operations in less developed markets. I always found it strange that sgx doesnt really stop and reject all sort of dodgy companies to go ahead with listing

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[–]dashrandomI'm basically a terrifying mirror. No wonder people want to lie 1 point 1 year ago

Thanks! Can't say I understood all of that but it helped!

P.s. What's a retail investor?

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[–]NutlessMonkey 1 point 1 year ago

The average individual. Anyone who buys stocks for their personal accounts, and is not acting on behalf of a mutual fund, hedge fund, pension etc.

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[–]bot882361 1 point 1 year ago

If it helps as imagery, just think of everyday people with an everyday normal boring job, but they opened a share trading account with a broker and trades stocks during their free time based on the news, their friends' tips and coffeeshop talk.

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[–]malaysianlah 2 points 1 year ago

Most singaporeans invest in the us or japan or uk. Or these days emerging markets china and India

Sgx never quite attracted me other than reits.

Or like me.. Invest in klse! Best share market for me (due to inherent familiarity with thw companies and the ongoing events in the market. Bfm also does a good job of keeping us informed) ! Plenty of syndicates as well.. so u gotta know what u touch, but the securities commission has been pretty good, even scuttled a few spacs that was trying to get listed

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[–][deleted] 1 year ago

[deleted]

[–]malaysianlah 1 point 1 year ago

Haha stick to midcap stocks. Small cap stocks r speculators play things. Midcap stocks tend of have the big boys to give some balance

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[–]malaysianlah 1 point 1 year ago

Anyway I did some more research on clob and... it seems like a structural issue arising from capital controls of the 1998 crisis.. not rly becasue the shares were crappy...

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[–]Snowstormzzz 2 points 1 year ago

Chicken and Egg issue for me. SGX has some really low volume, so it's hard to make any returns in a specific period of time when it is so slow moving.

So because of the low volume, I look to other exchanges (HKEX for me), and thus inherently contribute to the low volume issue in SGX.

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[–]KeythKatzwhat am i saying 1 point 1 year ago

Those rules regarding SIPs are the reason why I don't want anything to do with the Singapore market. It's ridiculous to be forced to stock-pick when index funds and ETFs are generally much safer, but are listed as SIPs.

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Summary:

1. Lots of unchecked inside trading (both private and GLCs).
2. Chinese companies using SGX to scam for money (poor corporate governance).
3. Penny stocks controlled by big players.
4. Total lost of confidence in SGX by investors result in extreme low volumes/transactions.
5. Other South East Asian stock exchanges have better returns.
6. SGX mandating full day non stop trading without getting feedback from remisiers.
7. Remisiers massive lost of income due to low trading volumes.

http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.sg/2016/02/sgx-elephant-that-no-one-wants-to-see.html

SGX – The elephant that no one wants to see
It was not just an elephant that no one sees, but no one wants to see or talk about as if there is a dark force telling them not to say anything about it. SGX held a public dialogue and it was a damn big deal. It never happened before! They never think it was necessary to do so. Mohamed must go to the mountain, don’t expect the mountain to come to Mohamed. So there was a public forum, for what, to hear about the elephant, to talk about the elephant? Anyone going there with any inkling of hope that something meaningful would come out of it must have his mental faculty checked.

The people in charge in the SGX and MAS are not idiots. They are the super talents of the land, the crème ala crème of our establishment. They did not know what is happening, they did not know the elephant was there, they could not see the elephant? Heard of the emperor’s new clothe? Who in his right mind, earning millions happily would dare or want to risk telling the emperor he is naked and get slapped?

So what did SGX try to do in the dialogue? As usual, telling the good stuff and hoping the audience would hear only the good stuff. They said, ‘bo how seow bo kong’ if you know what it means. The stock market is very healthy, really, as good as it could be, we are performing better than many major markets in the whole wide world. Ok, enough of ‘how seow’. And sure enough, the remisiers and everyone in the industry present at the forum could not stomach the ‘how seow’ being thrown at them. They did not want to hear the ‘good stuff’.

Hey, don’t think the remisiers, dealers and sundry are really daft, blindly reading the media and hearing only what people wanted them to hear. They are the practitioners, the people on the ground, losing their pants, their clients losing their life savings, and many are quitting a moribund industry. The stock market is doing well, according to who and on what criteria? No sensible person would say that without looking silly.

Ok, I confess I was not at the session, knowing what it would be like it would be a futile and time wasting effort to be there. The only thing good coming out of it, if you think it is good, is for the letting out of steam and frustration, to tell them to look at the elephant. Luckily the remisiers and dealers did not riot or throw their shoes at the panel. But many would leave the forum more frustrated than ever, knowing that no one that is in a position to do something was there to listen and to want to do something right. They were there to tell everyone that everything was fine, just like when they first decided to bring in the foreign funds and introduced all the changes to make high speed computer trading a bliss, at the expense of the rest of the players, taking advantage of computer power to cheat and fleece the innocents.

Remember what they said? The big funds, the computers plugged into the system, were the way going forward. This was the new thing and must follow market practice. There would be plentiful of liquidity and plentiful of trading activities. The stock market would spin out of control and everyone would be doing roaring businesses. Oops, this last sentence is just my exaggeration. But they did said the future was so bright and business would be so good that tomorrow could only be better. The rest is history.

Yes the stock market is very healthy. In another six months or so, maybe half of the remisiers and dealers would also pack up and leave. The broking houses would be operating on half strength and trying to break even in a losing battle in the best stock market in the world. Now, if the market is so good, why would the Singapore Business Federation rush a paper to appeal to the govt to reinvest in the local stock market that they could not raise fund from the market, a key function of the market, and they had to call the stock market a moribund stock market? Are they lying or someone else is lying?

And if the market is so good, why are the remisiers and dealers fleeing and why are the broking houses starting to make plans to cut staff and downsize? And why were the SGX and MAS deemed it necessary to break protocol, to come to Mohamed, to want to listen to Mohamed? Oops, sorry again, my mistake. They came to tell Mohamed the good news, that everything is fine, just fine.

Ok, let me hold my horses and quote a few comments that Rajan whatsapped to me from SI chat to give you an idea of the farce that happened at the forum and you can make up your own mind on the fruitfulness or futility of the chat session. This is the culture of the establishment. If they cannot convince you, they will confuse you. Remember the clown saying everyday that public housing was affordable? Actually more clowns are still singing the same tune.



Ok, here are the quotes:

If the remisiers, dealers are frustrated, what would the tens of thousands of lousy listing sufferers from S cheats to sinking SMEs do?
The outpour of anger and frustration among dealers and TRs was ‘encouraging’.
SGX began the day saying how Singapore exchange healthcare stocks has outperformed…put out a chart that’s says How our index has out performed SSEC since 2007(the grammar and typo errors are inherent in the posts). This went on for an hour, I can’t believe it, …’until a young man from DBSV interrupted and pointed out that they are cherry picking data points. The healthcare computation index was skewed and that if they had used another time period, the outcome would be different. (KNN)
He then went on to talk about how sick is the market. At lunch time yesterday half of the counters on sgx were not traded. The top 100 counters has only certain values etc etc. Things get heated up.
Soon remisiers one by one poured out their views on how S cheats, lousy SMEs, business trusts etc etc destroyed wealth savings of their friends, themselves and clients.
The outpouring was great.
It’s heartening to hear TRs questioning the morality, the extend of greed, the damage done to the investing public, the lives of those who depends on the industry from remisiers to backroom were given a chance to air.
Heard the young man talked about…remisiers, ex simex driving taxis and colleagues leaving…he grieved at the sorry state of affairs in the industry after years of mismanagement…How billions of market capitalizations were lost…lives broken….




The above comments are not new, did not happen yesterday. And you can bet that the people in the govt too knew about it. The sad thing is that all their heads were buried in the sand. No one dares to tell the truth, no one wants to tell the truth, no one wants to know the truth. You can bet Hsien Loong, Tharman, Heng Swee Kiat and every minister know what is happening to the stock market. The big question, why the reticence, why the inaction? Why is everyone looking the other way? This is the biggest mystery. This is the pathetic state of things. Who is responsible for this shit?

No one really, no one is responsible though many are taking millions and millions as salaries. ‘No one owes you a living. You die your business.’ Heard of the phrase ‘bo cheng hu’? Did the dialogue achieve anything or meant to achieve anything?

Thank you for bearing with me.

This is clearly going to embarrass the government.

ah loonz jingang wil tel ya nuttingz wrong ...

juz like ze mrt ... dey tel ya all 1st worldz mrt got plentiful of breakdowns n delays ... iz common ...

Here is something that is related to Heng Swee Keat. Former CEO of SGX and now Chairman of UOB Hsieh Fu Hua was founder and one third owner of Prime Partners. While he was CEO SGX his own company sensing the business that SGX was getting from China set up a joint to compete directly with SGX for Chinese firms for listing. He disclosed his link to Prime Partners when he joined SGX but not subsequently the creation of the venture to compete with his employers. . He also did not put his interest in Prime Partners in blind trust as it should have been the ethical thing to do. When it hit the press both local and foreign, Hsieh responded that there was chinese wall etc and tried to close off the incident.

Swee Keat went straight to WSJ and told that SGX board must address this. And Hsieh was forced to resign from Prime Partners entity. One year later he was out, supposedly resigned. An Hsieh is one powerful man and he is back in GIC as director, appointed when Swee Keat left MAS and went on to Education Ministry as Ministry

my stance is that who knows if the re-misers they themselves are crying wolf, especially those who have been in the industry for so long.i am sure they know that traders during simex time already play punk by tally their order book from brokerages daily, they will decide to push or pull a penny counter.

A lot of these remisiers are high chance PAP voters during the good times now get screwed get ask to upgrade and ship out become taxi drivers.

lololololol..................

better rules for short selling disclosure;

rethinking regulations for sophisticated instruments;

raising the quality bar for CPF Trustee stocks and lifting the limit for investment in equities from 35 to 80 per cent of the CPF Ordinary Account;

transferring long-suspended stocks with governance issues to a high-risk third board with cash upfront trading;

separating SGX's regulatory and commercial roles.

Fucking remisers and shitty singapore stock brokers that charges the highest commisions and provides the worst software.

Bring back the freaking lunch break!!!

The 2 casinos have replaced SGX

Low valuations, steep compliance costs spur privatisation wave in Singapore

Is it too much trouble to stay listed?

Several companies have made a beeline for privatisation in recent months, sparking concern that Singapore is losing its edge as a regional listing hub. Experts say that low valuations and high listing costs may have prompted the wave of delistings in the local bourse, but note that the market’s long-term fundamentals remain intact despite current sluggish conditions.

"There are various factors to take into consideration when a company considers privatisation. Companies that seek to privatise generally face illiquidity and compliance costs associated with maintaining a listing,” said Pong Chen Yih, Principal, Baker & McKenzie.Wong & Leow.

Pong added that being subject to listing rules also restricts a company’s ability to execute deals and clinch funding for corporate actions, which may weigh against the benefits of staying publicly listed.

“With the current economic environment, prices of certain stocks may be viewed as undervalued, and major stakeholders may feel that it is an appropriate time to privatise based on the above reasons,” he noted.

In a recent report, OCBC Investment Research noted that unjustifiably low valuations in the local bourse have made certain companies prime targets for opportunistic bargain hunters.

“In recent months, the Singapore market has seen a flurry of offers for listed companies, several of which have the aim of privatisation. Indeed, given how much share prices have declined and how attractive valuations are for certain companies out there, it is not surprising that bargain hunters are once again on the prowl for good deals,” said the report.

However, the flurry of deal activity does not mean that Singapore is losing its attractiveness as a fund-raising destination.

“I do not think the situation is unique to the SGX. You also see Chinese companies delisting from the US, largely based on the same reasons as well,” Pong noted.

Reports of potential new listings on the SGX—including the initial public offering of Manulife REIT and Fullerton Healthcare Group, as well as the probable listing of Frasers Centrepoint’s Australian assets via a REIT—prove that the market remains attractive for investors.

“I believe the SGX continues to remain one of the more attractive platforms for companies to raise funds," Pong said.
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