BENGALURU: Singapore stocks notched a record high on Tuesday, continuing this year’s stellar run, while the Malaysian ringgit and the Thai baht climbed to multi-year peaks against a frail US dollar.
Singapore’s FTSE Straits Times index scaled a peak of 4,637.42 points - its fourth new all-time high this month - led by major lenders DBS Group and OCBC that also hit record highs.
The benchmark index advanced 22 percent through 2025, driven by banks and real estate stocks, on route for its best year since 2009. Also contributing were gains in industrial stocks, such as defence firm ST Engineering, which has surged 80 percent.
“The Singapore equity market provides a compelling mix of income, growth, and diversification,” said JPMorgan. “It continues to deliver a stable dividend yield across the index…there has been an improvement in capital allocation and shareholder returns from some companies over the last 18 months.”
Elsewhere, equities were largely mixed, with volumes thinning out as investors refrained from making large bets during the holiday-curtailed week.
Indonesia slipped 0.6 percent, Malaysia was slightly lower. Tech-heavy equity benchmarks in South Korea and Taiwan gained up to 0.5 percent.
Thai stocks also rose 0.5 percent and the Thai baht briefly breached the 31.100 mark in early Asia hours and traded at 31.055 a dollar, its highest point since early June 2021.
Although it pared early gains to trade around 31.160 a dollar by 0653 GMT, the currency remained around its multi-year highs.
Surging gold prices have driven large foreign-exchange inflows from “huge” gold trading, boosting demand for the baht, with dollar weakness and tourism-linked inflows further strengthening the unit more than 10 percent this year.
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