As reverberations from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs are felt across markets, investors are increasingly gravitating toward Singapore’s high-yield, defensive companies, including telecom firms, pivoting away from old favourites such as banks.
Singapore’s benchmark index has proved resilient in the face of the back-and-forth tariff salvos, eking out a small gain for the year and faring better than regional peers as investors hunt for safe bets during the market tumult.
“Singapore is a high-yield market, which is going to be interesting and defensive in these times,” said Kenneth Tang, senior portfolio manager at Nikko Asset Management.
“It has characteristically been a lot more defensive and yield focused, and that will work in its favour.”
Singapore’s telecom, industrials, and utilities stocks – viewed by investors as defensive sectors during extreme volatility – have become hot favourites, attracting the most institutional money in the last two weeks.
Telecommunications firm Singtel pulled in S$343.6 million ($261.6 million) in the past two weeks alone from institutional investors, more than the S$297 million it received in the first three months of the year, exchange data showed.
