SGX climbs to all-time high as retail interest returns to local stock market; Seatrium sinks

The Singapore Exchange hit a high of around $17.90 last week before closing on Oct 10 at $17.51, as efforts to revitalise the local bourse gained momentum.

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Seatrium's Tuas Boulevard Yard. Shares of the offshore rig builder tumbled by 6.6 per cent to $2.28 on Oct 10 after it announced that its customer, Maersk Offshore Wind, had sent it a notice of termination a day earlier for a US$475 million (S$616.3 million) contract to build a vessel that is already 98.9 per cent completed.

(PHOTO: SEATRIUM)

Retail participation on the SGX reached a three-year high, while the number of initial public offerings has risen in 2025, said SGX Group chief executive Loh Boon Chye at the company's annual general meeting on Oct 9.

Mr Loh told shareholders that retail participation in the recent IPOs has “trended above the market average”.

He added that trading momentum for smalland mid-cap counters in the recent quarter has grown, with the average daily trading value more than doubling from a year earlier.

The stronger trading momentum is backed by larger volumes of institutional capital being directed into Singapore equities, particularly those beyond the 30 blue-chip stocks on the Straits Times Index (STI), said Mr Loh.

In the first week of October, institutional investors like funds and banks bought $481.3 million more Singapore stocks than they sold, according to SGX. Mid-cap stocks like Soilbuild Construction, Addvalue Tech, InnoTek, Marco Polo Marine, PC Partner, Boustead, ValueMax, Hong Leong Asia, Frencken and Tuan Sing saw strong buying interest.