Do you invest in the STI? Singapore's market is very niche and that will also mean it can be risky to invest in Singapore stocks. Would you encourage people to buy Singapore stocks?

I feel that STI doesnt have much potential. Looking at its overall price chart, the STI doesnt really progress much.

Sg stock I will recommend the Banks and Reits stocks for dividend purpose.

Potential growth stock, other countries market such as US, HK have way much potential compared to the SG market.

Personally, I don't invest in the STI for a few reasons, let me list them out and see if you agree or disagree with me. There are no right or wrong answers, just perhaps a sharing from my perspective:

STI is strongly lacking in tech options

Tech is a rapidly growing sector, especially with developments in so many subsectors of tech. From cloud computing to artificial intelligence to semiconductors to blockchain, tech is a fast growing space and in my honest opinion, we’re just getting started. With the STI not consisting of any tech options, this will reduce the ability for the STI to capitalise on the growth of tech space in the decade to come.

STI is overweight on Financials

In the STI, we can see that the bulk of the companies fall into the Financials sector. This includes the banks as well as REITs that comprise the STI. The performance of financials are heavily affected by macroeconomic factors such as interest rates, monetary policy and tax policies. This concentration causes the STI to be much more susceptible to sector based shocks.

STI is not fully representative of Singapore's economy

A lot of Singaporeans invest in the STI because they believe that Singpaore will do well in the years to come. However, the STI is not representative of the Singapore economy because of this concentration. The STI’s combined market capitalisation is $288 billion while the entire Singapore Stock Exchange (i.e. all the listed companies on the SGX) are valued at $733 billion. This means that the STI only covers about 39.29% of the market capitalisation of all the companies on the SGX. Compared to the S&P 500, which represents around 87.18% of the entire US stock market’s market capitalisation. As such, investing into the STI poses a concentration risk even within the Singapore market.

STI is focused on Dividends

While this itself is not a bad thing, the focus on dividends further shows a lack in growth opportunities for the companies in the STI. Dividends are usually paid out to shareholders because the management cannot find a better place to use the money that the company has on hand. Hence, the high dividend yields of the STI is indicative of lacking growth opportunities for the STI's big players.

What do I recommend?

Now, this is not to say that there are no good SGX stocks. There are, but you need to be discerning with them. iFast and AEM are that have performed exceptionally well in the past years.

However, if you're looking for a more passive approach, consider an S&P 500 ETF such as CSPX or a global index ETF such as IWDA instead for your wealth accumulation!