SINGAPORE — The Singapore Exchange (SGX) heads into the final stretch of 2025 with something it hasn’t consistently enjoyed in recent years: momentum that’s visible in both price action and participation—and a policy-and-product agenda that’s clearly designed to make that momentum harder to reverse.
With seven trading days left in 2025, the Straits Times Index (STI) has delivered a year-to-date price return of 20.7% (as of Dec 18), while Singapore REITs (S-REITs) are up 9% over the same period. Meanwhile, 10 S-REITs have attracted more than S$1 billion in combined net retail inflows year to date—an attention-grabbing datapoint in a market where retail participation is increasingly being treated as a feature, not a footnote. [1]
This late-year tape isn’t happening in a vacuum. Over recent weeks, the SGX ecosystem has been hit by a concentrated burst of market-structure upgrades, listing rule reforms, cross-border connectivity pushes, and new product launches—including a move into institutional crypto perpetual futures—all while banks and strategists publish 2026 outlooks that frame Singapore as a potential beneficiary of a broader ASEAN re-rating.
What follows is a comprehensive, publication-ready digest of the news, forecasts, and analyst takes shaping SGX as of Dec 21, 2025.
1) The market picture: stronger turnover, a higher STI, and REITs pulling in retail money
If you want a quick pulse check on whether a market revival is real, you look for a boring trio: turnover, breadth, and who’s actually showing up. November’s exchange data gave SGX plenty to point at.
SGX reported total securities market turnover value rising 18% year on year to S$35.5 billion in November, with turnover volume up 4% to 29.3 billion shares—an increase it attributed to interest in index stocks and REITs, with retail investors “particularly keen” on the latter. [2]
On the index side, the STI gained 2.2% month-on-month in November, pushing year-to-date gains to 19% and total returns to 25% (as cited in the same SGX update). The index also reached a new peak of 4,575.91 on Nov 13—a psychologically important milestone for a market that has spent years being described (sometimes unfairly, sometimes accurately) as “sleepy.” [3]
REITs, meanwhile, are doing what REITs do best in Singapore when conditions cooperate: become the market’s “income gravity.”
A Dec 21 analysis highlighted that the 10 S-REITs with the largest net retail inflows year-to-date were:
- Mapletree Industrial Trust
- Mapletree Logistics Trust
- NTT DC REIT
- CapitaLand Ascendas REIT
- CapitaLand Ascott Trust
- Keppel DC REIT
- ParkwayLife REIT
- Frasers Centrepoint Trust
- Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust
- Digital Core REIT
Together, they accounted for more than S$1 billion in combined inflows, with many concentrated in industrial and data centre segments—areas often framed as structurally supported (logistics/industrial resilience, and data centres as AI-era infrastructure). [4]
From a valuation lens, the same analysis noted the iEdge S-REIT Index trading around a 0.95 price-to-book, below its historical average band, with an average distribution yield of about 5%—a neat summary of why the sector continues to magnetize capital whenever rate fears cool even slightly. [5]
2) The policy push: “Value Unlock” grants and a blunt reality—many stocks still trade below book
A rally is nice. A rally with a stated public-policy objective behind it is… rarer. Singapore has been unusually explicit about wanting a stronger equities market, and one of the most discussed levers late in 2025 is the S$30 million “Value Unlock” initiative.
Market watchers have framed the programme as a practical attempt to fix a chronic SGX problem: good businesses that don’t get rewarded with good multiples—often because of thin liquidity, limited research coverage, and weak investor communication.
As of Dec 18, The Straits Times reported 614 companies listed on SGX’s Mainboard and Catalist, and found 353 (57%) trading below book value (price-to-book under 1). The Value Unlock initiative provides two grants (Equip and Elevate) meant to help listed firms improve corporate strategy, capital optimization, and investor relations—essentially, to help companies tell a clearer story and behave in ways markets tend to reward. [6]
This matters for SGX as an institution because valuation gaps feed a nasty loop:
Low multiples → founders dislike listing → fewer quality IPOs → less investor attention → lower liquidity → low multiples.
Value Unlock is one attempt to cut into that loop without pretending there’s a single magic switch.
3) Lowering the “minimum buy-in”: SGX board lot cut to 10 units for higher-priced stocks
Sometimes the simplest frictions are the most corrosive. One friction SGX is tackling directly: how expensive it can be for retail investors to buy a single board lot of Singapore’s higher-priced blue chips.
SGX has announced plans to reduce board lot size to 10 units from 100 units for securities priced above S$10. The change is intended to boost affordability, broaden participation, and make portfolio diversification easier. [7]
