SGX debt fundraising and total equity increased 49% in January 2020

On Tuesday (11 Feb), the Singapore Exchange (SGX) stated that Singapore stocks maintained a strong pace of trade activity last month in spite of the relatively quiet period for Asia.

In late January, the Chinese New Year Festivities commenced and several regional markets were closed. Even so, the country’s total securities market turnover still increased 27 per cent to S$25.6 billion, compared to December last year.

In addition to this, the securities daily average value (SDAV) also increased by 27 per cent month-on-month to S$1.2 billion.

Compared to the previous month, the debt fundraising and total equity increased 49 per cent to S$50.4 billion as a result of the listing debut by the international sovereign bonds by Laos alongside the year’s first initial public offering by Resources Global Development on Catalist.

At the same time, the market turnover value of exchange-traded funds on the Singapore bourse increased 73 per cent month-on-month in January, reaching S$263 million, which is the highest value since August 2018.

Compared to December, daily leverage certificates (DLCs) and structured warrants, both of the market turnover value skyrocketed 94 per cent to S$920 million. DLCs on Tencent stock and structured warrants on Hang Seng Index were the most actively traded.

After the Phase One trade agreement inked by US and China, SGX’s portfolio of equity derivatives grew last month owing to the institutional investor optimism on growth outlook for emerging Asia. This growth occurred in spite of the deteriorating sentiments caused by the coronavirus outbreak since the end of January.

Total traded volume in SGX equity index futures reached the highest in five months as it rose 13 per cent on the month to 14.3 million contracts. This was fuelled by the 30 per cent spike for both the SGX Nifty 50 Index Futures and SGX FTSE China A50 Index Futures.

Based on year-on-year comparison, the top performers were SGX Nikkei 225 Index Futures and SGX MSCI Singapore Index Futures as shown by the 18 per cent and 33 per cent increases in traded volume respectively.

In the commodity markets, SGX remarked that the prices of iron ore derivatives fell sharply due to the news of the coronavirus outbreak. In January, the total traded volume of iron ore derivatives fell 8 per cent compared to December to 1.3 million contracts.

In the midst of all this, SGX also experienced days of record open interest across common derivatives in January, as a result of more adoption of the SGX’s risk management products.