For boards and institutional investors, this raises a fundamental question: Is success defined by market activity: higher turnover, tighter spreads and more IPOs; or by market quality: expanding the number of companies worth owning at an institutional scale?
Singapore’s equity market staged a convincing rally last year. The Straits Times Index (STI) rose 22.7%, turnover surged 21% to nearly $1.5 billion daily, and IPO proceeds reached US$2.5 billion ($3.15 billion), a forty-fold jump from 2024’s dismal US$64 million. These numbers seemed to vindicate the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) reform package, expanded to $6.5 billion in Budget 2026.
Yet trading data tells a more complicated story. STI stocks commanded 88% of the total market trading value in April 2025. By September 2025, that share had dropped to 77% as breadth improved mid-year. But by December 2025, it had reconcentrated to 80%. The pattern suggests that MAS’s measures created a temporary broadening that did not hold: liquidity accelerated but did not durably redistribute beyond the market’s established apex.
