Iggy's Journal: The Fed, the ECB, and the Bank of Japan Are All Raising Rates. The UK, India, and China Are Not. Here's What That Means for Your CPF and SRS. 23 September 2026, Morning Podcast Everyone assumed hiking banks are the hawks and holding banks are the doves. That's the wrong frame entirely, and it took me a minute to see it too. The Numbers The BOJ hiked to 1.25% even though Japan carries one of the most indebted governments in the world, while China held for a sixteenth straight month despite industrial production actually strengthening. The real split isn't hawkish versus dovish. It's whose demand needs restraining versus whose credit demand is too weak to justify tightening at all. MAS doesn't set a policy rate the way the Fed or ECB does, but SORA mortgages, T-bill yields, a

Iggy's Journal: EP1828 - Singtel's Yield Looks Like 4.3%. Strip Out the One-Off Dividend and It's 3.1%. 22 September 2026, Evening Video Release UOB Kay Hian's $5.50 target and my 4.3% yield reading aren't actually disagreeing with each other. One is pricing a Nxera transaction that hasn't happened yet. The other is measuring the cash Singtel is paying out right now. The Numbers A stock can clear the first test and fail the second at the same time, and that's exactly what I found when I ran the current numbers. Strip out the one-off Value Realisation Dividend and Singtel's core yield drops to 3.08%, below what CPF Special Account already pays with zero equity risk attached. The balance sheet itself isn't the issue. Gearing sits at 23.3% and interest coverage at 19.0x, both clearing with wi

Chip Controls, a Boeing Deal, and a Taiwan Arms Sale All Converge on One Meeting. Here's the Singapore Read. 22 September 2026, Afternoon Podcast Everyone's watching whether Trump and Xi get along on September 24. I'm watching a different question. What happens to the equipment makers sitting underneath the chips, if nobody in that room even mentions them. The Numbers Export controls have been the sticking point through every round of talks this year, and the base case going in is that nothing changes on that front. That's the boring, correct expectation, not a surprise. AEM Holdings isn't on any export control list, but it posted 1H2026 revenue up 30 percent year on year to S$247.2 million on AI and high performance computing demand, the kind of order book that moves when the rules shift

Iggy's Journal: ETFs Cost 0.03%. Unit Trusts Hit You With 5% First. 21 September 2026, Afternoon I went through my own SRS lineup this week and checked the fee structure line by line, not just the headline expense ratio. What jumped out wasn't the ETF side. It was how much unit trusts are still costing people who probably don't know it. The Numbers Singapore's ETF market just crossed $20.5 billion, with CPF and SRS holdings up 380 percent. But fee compression isn't actually happening here. Banks earn 1.5 to 5 percent upfront sales charges on unit trusts, plus ongoing trailer fees worth 20 to 60 percent of the annual management fee. That structure keeps expensive unit trusts in favour, not because they perform better, but because they pay better to the people selling them. My Personal Take

Iggy's Journal: ETFs Cost 0.03%. Unit Trusts Hit You With 5% First. 21 September 2026, Afternoon I went through my own SRS lineup this week and checked the fee structure line by line, not just the headline expense ratio. What jumped out wasn't the ETF side. It was how much unit trusts are still costing people who probably don't know it. The Numbers Singapore's ETF market just crossed $20.5 billion, with CPF and SRS holdings up 380 percent. But fee compression isn't actually happening here. Banks earn 1.5 to 5 percent upfront sales charges on unit trusts, plus ongoing trailer fees worth 20 to 60 percent of the annual management fee. That structure keeps expensive unit trusts in favour, not because they perform better, but because they pay better to the people selling them. My Personal Take

Iggy's Journal: ETFs Cost 0.03%. Unit Trusts Hit You With 5% First. 21 September 2026, Afternoon I went through my own SRS lineup this week and checked the fee structure line by line, not just the headline expense ratio. What jumped out wasn't the ETF side. It was how much unit trusts are still costing people who probably don't know it. The Numbers Singapore's ETF market just crossed $20.5 billion, with CPF and SRS holdings up 380 percent. But fee compression isn't actually happening here. Banks earn 1.5 to 5 percent upfront sales charges on unit trusts, plus ongoing trailer fees worth 20 to 60 percent of the annual management fee. That structure keeps expensive unit trusts in favour, not because they perform better, but because they pay better to the people selling them. My Personal Take

Iggy's Journal: ETFs Cost 0.03%. Unit Trusts Hit You With 5% First. 21 September 2026, Afternoon I went through my own SRS lineup this week and checked the fee structure line by line, not just the headline expense ratio. What jumped out wasn't the ETF side. It was how much unit trusts are still costing people who probably don't know it. The Numbers Singapore's ETF market just crossed $20.5 billion, with CPF and SRS holdings up 380 percent. But fee compression isn't actually happening here. Banks earn 1.5 to 5 percent upfront sales charges on unit trusts, plus ongoing trailer fees worth 20 to 60 percent of the annual management fee. That structure keeps expensive unit trusts in favour, not because they perform better, but because they pay better to the people selling them. My Personal Take

Iggy's Journal: ETFs Cost 0.03%. Unit Trusts Hit You With 5% First. 21 September 2026, Afternoon I went through my own SRS lineup this week and checked the fee structure line by line, not just the headline expense ratio. What jumped out wasn't the ETF side. It was how much unit trusts are still costing people who probably don't know it. The Numbers Singapore's ETF market just crossed $20.5 billion, with CPF and SRS holdings up 380 percent. But fee compression isn't actually happening here. Banks earn 1.5 to 5 percent upfront sales charges on unit trusts, plus ongoing trailer fees worth 20 to 60 percent of the annual management fee. That structure keeps expensive unit trusts in favour, not because they perform better, but because they pay better to the people selling them. My Personal Take

Iggy's Journal: ETFs Cost 0.03%. Unit Trusts Hit You With 5% First. 21 September 2026, Afternoon I went through my own SRS lineup this week and checked the fee structure line by line, not just the headline expense ratio. What jumped out wasn't the ETF side. It was how much unit trusts are still costing people who probably don't know it. The Numbers Singapore's ETF market just crossed $20.5 billion, with CPF and SRS holdings up 380 percent. But fee compression isn't actually happening here. Banks earn 1.5 to 5 percent upfront sales charges on unit trusts, plus ongoing trailer fees worth 20 to 60 percent of the annual management fee. That structure keeps expensive unit trusts in favour, not because they perform better, but because they pay better to the people selling them. My Personal Take

Iggy's Journal: Growing Faster, Bleeding Less, Still Not Paying You 19 September 2026, Evening Video Release Grab shares are sitting near a 52 week low. I pulled the actual Q2 2026 numbers before writing anything, and the share price wasn't what jumped out at me. The Numbers Financial Services revenue grew 59 percent to US$134 million, while the segment's EBITDA loss narrowed to US$15 million. That's growth with less bleeding, not profitability, and those are two very different things to be excited about. The Atome deal can't even consolidate into results until Q3 2027 at the earliest, so whatever story you're telling yourself about that acquisition today is getting ahead of the actual accounting. My Personal Take If you're holding Grab inside CPF or SRS, I want to be direct about what thi

Iggy's Journal: Growing Faster, Bleeding Less, Still Not Paying You 19 September 2026, Evening Video Release Grab shares are sitting near a 52 week low. I pulled the actual Q2 2026 numbers before writing anything, and the share price wasn't what jumped out at me. The Numbers Financial Services revenue grew 59 percent to US$134 million, while the segment's EBITDA loss narrowed to US$15 million. That's growth with less bleeding, not profitability, and those are two very different things to be excited about. The Atome deal can't even consolidate into results until Q3 2027 at the earliest, so whatever story you're telling yourself about that acquisition today is getting ahead of the actual accounting. My Personal Take If you're holding Grab inside CPF or SRS, I want to be direct about what thi

Iggy's Journal: Growing Faster, Bleeding Less, Still Not Paying You 19 September 2026, Evening Video Release Grab shares are sitting near a 52 week low. I pulled the actual Q2 2026 numbers before writing anything, and the share price wasn't what jumped out at me. The Numbers Financial Services revenue grew 59 percent to US$134 million, while the segment's EBITDA loss narrowed to US$15 million. That's growth with less bleeding, not profitability, and those are two very different things to be excited about. The Atome deal can't even consolidate into results until Q3 2027 at the earliest, so whatever story you're telling yourself about that acquisition today is getting ahead of the actual accounting. My Personal Take If you're holding Grab inside CPF or SRS, I want to be direct about what thi

Iggy's Journal: Growing Faster, Bleeding Less, Still Not Paying You 19 September 2026, Evening Video Release Grab shares are sitting near a 52 week low. I pulled the actual Q2 2026 numbers before writing anything, and the share price wasn't what jumped out at me. The Numbers Financial Services revenue grew 59 percent to US$134 million, while the segment's EBITDA loss narrowed to US$15 million. That's growth with less bleeding, not profitability, and those are two very different things to be excited about. The Atome deal can't even consolidate into results until Q3 2027 at the earliest, so whatever story you're telling yourself about that acquisition today is getting ahead of the actual accounting. My Personal Take If you're holding Grab inside CPF or SRS, I want to be direct about what thi

Iggy's Journal: Growing Faster, Bleeding Less, Still Not Paying You 19 September 2026, Evening Video Release Grab shares are sitting near a 52 week low. I pulled the actual Q2 2026 numbers before writing anything, and the share price wasn't what jumped out at me. The Numbers Financial Services revenue grew 59 percent to US$134 million, while the segment's EBITDA loss narrowed to US$15 million. That's growth with less bleeding, not profitability, and those are two very different things to be excited about. The Atome deal can't even consolidate into results until Q3 2027 at the earliest, so whatever story you're telling yourself about that acquisition today is getting ahead of the actual accounting. My Personal Take If you're holding Grab inside CPF or SRS, I want to be direct about what thi

Iggy's Journal: Growing Faster, Bleeding Less, Still Not Paying You 19 September 2026, Evening Video Release Grab shares are sitting near a 52 week low. I pulled the actual Q2 2026 numbers before writing anything, and the share price wasn't what jumped out at me. The Numbers Financial Services revenue grew 59 percent to US$134 million, while the segment's EBITDA loss narrowed to US$15 million. That's growth with less bleeding, not profitability, and those are two very different things to be excited about. The Atome deal can't even consolidate into results until Q3 2027 at the earliest, so whatever story you're telling yourself about that acquisition today is getting ahead of the actual accounting. My Personal Take If you're holding Grab inside CPF or SRS, I want to be direct about what thi

Iggy's Journal: The Currency That Didn't Get the Oil Shock Memo 19 September 2026, Afternoon Podcast Release Everyone assumes US$100 oil and a 5 percent US 10 year yield should hammer every regional currency equally. The Singdollar just hit a 10 month high against the ringgit instead. The Numbers Singapore isn't reacting like a typical emerging market to this shock. Durable balance of payments surpluses, strong FDI inflows, and MAS's own July tightening are pulling in safe haven money while neighbouring currencies absorb the pain the oil shock is supposed to spread evenly. My Personal Take This cuts both ways depending on what's actually sitting in your portfolio, and I think most people haven't checked which side they're on. A stronger Singdollar means cheaper imports and helps any REIT c

Iggy's Journal: The Bank Everyone Says Wins, and the Yield That Says Not Yet 19 September 2026, Morning Video Release Everyone read this week's Fed hike as good news for UOB. The structural case actually holds up, 43 percent of its loan book sits in Singapore dollars against 37 to 38 percent for DBS and OCBC. But here's what doesn't fit the celebration: UOB's yield gap to my hurdle widened this week, it didn't narrow. The Numbers UOB's trailing yield sits at 3.80 percent against my 4.7 percent hurdle, a 90 basis point miss that's actually 9 points wider than it was three weeks ago. The market had already priced in UOB's structural advantage before the Fed even opened its mouth, which is exactly why the payout hasn't caught up to the good news yet. The margin benefit Macquarie is modelling

Iggy's Journal: A Quick Change to How Videos Come Out 19 September, AM Programme Note Starting with Episode 1824 - UOB Has the Most to Gain From the Fed's Return to Rate Hikes, the YouTube video for each long form piece goes up the same day as the Substack article instead of a week later. If you're on the free side, your video will now play up to the same point where the Substack article's free section stops, then end there, rather than staying members only for a week and then opening up in full. If you're on YouTube Edge (S$5) or Ultimate Value Pass (S$12), nothing changes for you beyond timing: you still get the full forensic video. Find it in the new Members Edition playlist. If you're on Substack Deep-Dive (US$8), that tier covers the full written analysis, not video. The free video wi

Iggy's Journal: Same Overseas Exposure, Very Different Damage 18 September 2026, Evening Video Release I used to treat "overseas exposure" as the warning label on a REIT. I don't think that's the sharp question anymore. The sharper one is which overseas bond market is actually setting the discount rate on those overseas properties, because three REITs with foreign exposure just got treated nothing alike. The Numbers Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust took only a 2.3 percent cut, landing at S$1.71. CapitaLand Ascott Trust and Frasers Logistics and Commercial Trust weren't nearly as fortunate, down 27.5 percent and 27.8 percent respectively. All three REITs hold property outside Singapore. The gap between a 2.3 percent hit and a 27.8 percent one isn't explained by overseas exposure alone. W