From fear to FOMO

There’s one thing that’s clear from this week’s Treasury Bill (T-bill) auctions – interest rates are coming down. 

The 1-year T-bill auction ended with a cut-off yield of 3.87% p.a., below the best fixed deposit rates in the market. 

The cut-off yield on the 10-year SGS bond auction was at 2.86% p.a., below the 10-year average yield on the latest Singapore Savings Bonds (SSBs)

Interestingly, there were less applications for the SSBs than the issuance size of $700 million. This marked a sharp reversal from a few months ago, when many were concerned about not getting sufficient allocation. 

On the other hand, REITs had a big bounce with bond yields starting to come down. In this week feature, we analyse whether it might be time to look at REITs once again. 

🦸‍♂️ Elon Musk saves the day 

What happened? 

Tesla expects to deliver at least 1.8 million electric vehicles in 2023, around 40% more than it did last year.

What does this mean?

The higher than expected delivery numbers for this year suggests that the company could see strong demand growth even in an economic slowdown. 

This is driven largely by the United States, as the Model 3 and Model Y vehicles could be eligible for the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits. 

Why should I care? 

Investors reacted positively to the strong earnings reported by Tesla and upbeat production forecasts. 

This also helped to lift sentiment towards the tech sector, with the NASDAQ posting another week of gains.

🚗 MOVING THIS WEEK

• Microsoft (MSFT) provided a disappointing revenue forecast for the first quarter of 2023, after demand weakened in December across numerous segments including its Azure cloud services business.
• Intel (INTC) reported disappointing earnings for the fourth quarter of 2022, with a 32% decline in revenue compared to the previous year with chips in oversupply. The company expects to continue making a loss in the coming quarter. 
• Mapletree Industrial Trust  reported a DPU of 3.39 cents for the fourth quarter of 2022, a 2.9% decrease compared to the previous year, due to higher operating expenses and borrowing costs. 
• Frasers Centrepoint Trust reported an improvement in the performance of its malls with the committed occupancy rate increasing by 0.9% compared to the previous quarter to 98.4%, due to high leasing demand.

Source: Bloomberg, CNBC, Financial Times, Business Times, Edge Singapore

💡 THE BIG IMPORTANT STORY

Is it time to buy Singapore REITs?

With interest rates starting to fall, we analyse if now is the time to look at REITs once again.

🤓 WHAT WE’RE LOOKING OUT FOR THIS WEEK

Monday, 30 Jan: 

• SIAS Weekly Market Review: Market Outlook 2023

Tuesday, 31 Jan: 

• SG: Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust, Keppel DC REIT earnings
• US: General Motors, Spotify, AMD earnings

Wednesday, 1 Feb: 

• SG: CICT earnings
• US: US Interest Rate Decision, Peloton , Meta earnings

Thursday, 2 Feb: 

• SG: Singapore 6-month T-bill auction, Keppel, CapitaLand Ascendas REIT earnings
• US: Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Google earnings

Friday, 3 Feb: 

• US Unemployment Rate

Source: Bloomberg, SGX 

🍭 THAT’S INTERESTING

More expensive hawker food

Prices of hawker food in Singapore rose 8.1% in December compared to the previous year, reaching a 14-year high. This exceeded the price increase of 7.5% at restaurants, fast food chains and food caterers, based on the latest data from the Department of Statistics. However, inflation at hawker centres was still lower than the price increase for many ingredients such as eggs and poultry, which saw double-digit growth. 

Source: Bloomberg