12/21/2012

SGX – The truth is out


It is reported, finally, in the ST that all is not well in the stock market. For a particular month, many remisiers were earning less than $1000 in commission. This is nothing better than the cleaners in the foodcourt. And in a normal month, many are raking less than $2000. What are the implications?

It is not simply a dying profession for the remisiers. The broking houses need the commission to pay its staff or they too will have to close shop. The green eye monster has done its job well to kill this industry that once was a roaring business and supporting many other businesses in one way or another. The drastic changes in turning a stock market into a casino drove the final nail into the coffin.

The volume of trading appears to be high but simply fictitious in a way, generated by computers for brokerages or trading houses, house trades that bear no commission. The real participation of traders, retail and institutions too is dwindling and drying up.

The state of health of the market is best seen by good stocks being delisted as their real values are higher than the stock values in the market. It thus does not make sense for good companies to waste their time and paying fees to be listed. And with so many penny stocks, 1c or less than 1c stocks in the main board, it simply says something is embarrassingly wrong.

Surely the people responsible for ensuring a healthy and viable stock market know what is going wrong and how to put it right. They are not paid in the millions for nothing. Once the stock market is crippled, with remisiers and supporting staff quitting the industry, with brokerages shrinking and folding up, the damage is very difficult to repair. There will be a loss of confidence and a fleeing of funds. The offices in the financial district could go empty and rentals will slide as well.

The job loss in the industry is insignificant to the demise of a stock market and the finance industry. Make no mistake about it. The numbers don’t lie. The market and the associated businesses are going kaput while millions are being paid and there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.

24 comments:

Veritas said...

SGX is another FT infested company that run into shit. One of Kuan Yew's neo-Hindu tenet is 宁赠外邦,莫与家奴 (rather give to FT than Singaporeans).

If we understand the composition of elites, we would not have difficulties in grasping why certain crazy things happened in SG.

PAP and the elites are made up of peranakan bastard who masquerade themselves as "Chinese", within a sea of Chinese majority citizen. PAP has inherent distrust about Chinese. To the extent Chinese schools were shut down, while Malay Madrasa are allowed to operate.

The trusted peranakan are far and few. And high ranking position would rather go to FT than to give real talented Singaporeans a chance.

Anonymous said...

The Singapore Stock Market is as good as dead.My dealer representative told me he earned about eight hundred dollars brokerage commision a month and that ,he said ,is pretty good in this market condition.He roughed it out daily as he got no other alternative.I feel sorry for those younger DRs who have to bring a family with such low income.

Anonymous said...

With taxi drivers earning 3 to 5Ks a month on average and 7Ks on a good month, remisiers and other staff affected may like to consider switching vocation.

And there can be meal, gambling and smoking breaks anytime. On top of that the cab can be the family car some more.

Anonymous said...

They have destroyed the stock market and not admitting it. Waiting for the coffin to be buried to confirm it is dead.

Sheer irresponsibility.

Anonymous said...

Non-native CEOs know nothing about our unique local market!! Come in and introduce useless products like SSF, ES etc. End of the day, they collect huge sum of salary/bonuses and leave!!

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

I am going to apply for a taxi driving licence soon.

Anonymous said...

The regression I have seen in this industry over the last 40 years, (yes I have been in it for that long) make me decide to finally quit the scene. No industry can survive without a cross section of players, and the SGX mentality is skewed when they think professionals can generate the volumes they need to be profitable. They spent a huge sum on hardware, and claims to be the fastest trading engine in the world, all for nought, for without good products, you are king of nothing.

I have made comments to them about the covered warrants, with unique market makers which makes prices to suit their agendas. Retail clients end up none the wiser. With this and S chips, who needs to trade the stock markets in Singapore. Oh I forgot, you need to take a test to enable you to trade SIPs. The biggest joke is that this test is conducted online, er can I take it on behalf of a client ? Well you are not supposed to, but tell you what, who cares.

Anonymous said...

No lunch break, longer trading hours some more.

Anonymous said...

From insider info, DBS Vickers are retrenching their Private Client dealers in the pretext of restructuring

Anonymous said...

If you hav to pay $81k for COE n $400+k or more for housing, where u going to have disposal income to play stock market?

Anonymous said...

well, this is the result of getting FT as CEO coming out with:-
1.Changing the Trading system to Window catering to the big boys for fast speed trading.
2.Longer trading hours and no lunch time (What happen to Human rights)
3.Making clients sit exam for buying foreign shares.
4.Making mistake in selling wrong counter ,or wrong shares you can be fined. I hope they also change the law on murder whether there is intention or not.

May be the FT CEO should be made to take an exam first to see he knows the local market before he can take up the post, lah.

Anonymous said...

Can anyone, including the author, claim to have a knowledge of this topic? The decline in numbers of remisers is actually a sign the market is improving, with online trading there is no need for these people that do not serve a meaningful role. This is also what is happening with realestate agents with the internet. This is called advancement with technology. Rather than a sign of decline, it is a sign that Singapore is finally catchingup to more modern stock markets.

Anonymous said...

I love this website - its all about just complaining! Ha, try and enjoy life, you'll regret spending your life being grumpy and complaining when the end comes... get on with it!

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:24, you are so stupid to be here. Quickly go somewhere that you don't regret. Your IQ is as good as zero.

Anon 2:23/2:24, same one. You question RB's knowledge. So you know better? Please tell what is your job? IB?

Anonymous said...

Hahahaha, anon 2:38. You are so right. I bet you this idiot will still come back here to look stupid and confirm his IQ is zero.

Anonymous said...

Go back to basics.
What is the reason for the existence of a Singapore stock exchange?

Veritas said...

5. Same case here in my current job, another large MNC. These Indian nationals have colluded and created a haven and enclave such that they will carry on their dirty tricks to help them get by and continue to earn SGD for years to come. They never really put in any sincere effort to work. They now have the you-owe-me mentality.

Hi RB, today in TRE, again I see people cursing FT Indian again. Sorry to comment here even though its not related. Foreign investors are going to think that Singaporeans are SCREW UP BIG TIME engineers, because FT Indians bring all their fxxking trick here.

Personally I have seen them shitting in other department as well. All the good Singaporeans engineer endure. FT Indian Cheers.

But why are companies hiring FT Indians given their odious reputation? I have 2 main reasons.

1) An Ang Moh admit that she like Indian and do not like Chinese point blank. From my observation, many Ang Moh feel the same way. Since most MNC are owned by Ang Moh, hence FT Indian got exorbitant privileges in employment.

That Ang Moh told me that she has a strange affinity to Indian, and she cannot understand what Chinese think. I believe this is cultural. Even though some Indians are Dravidan, the Hindustani culture has strong Aryan veneer. Ang Moh are Aryan, so that feel close to Indians.

Its similar to that we Singaporean Chinese feel close to Burmese, Viet, PRC, Jap, Korean, Thai, Tibetan or even Mongolian. We can understand them better than we can understand Ang Moh.

2) The next problem is Singaporean boss. Singaporean boss like to play politics. They are there not because of meritocract but because they are friends of so and so big shot in the company.

Most Singaporean boss are incompetent. When they see young hardworking guys (pretty girls are not included), they feel threaten. FT Indian who are good in office politics is a good management tool to stir up resentment among the team.

When the team fight, managers can manipulate and control them. I have some leadership experience. I rub shoulders with managers and i can assured you many are dishonest and manipulative ad nausea.

But what has make the managers so insecure? His HDB debt, and also the wage differential between soldiers and managers are too big, thanks to NWC. Also manager here are too powerful, they can run down anyone they do not like, and fired someone for no reason.

In short, there are too much to loose for managers that they die die must survive. And hence, we create a dysgenic culture.

The solution is to empower workers and reduce wage differential. But that is a complete social engineering that basically put an end to Kuan Yew's neo-hinduism.

Singapore is able to hire the best workers from 7 billion people in the world. Yet her technology is shit. There are reasons.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Don't blame the FT. Blame those that brought them here.

Anonymous said...

Remisiers are basically useless middlemen. They are NOT needed today.period.

Anonymous said...

You do not know what you are talking. In a small market like SGX, without remisiers, without contra trade, the market would be only 10% of what it is today.

No banks will provide unsecured credits. This is the most vital role of remisiers. They allowed clients to buy without money out front and took the risk of paying for the client's losses.

You understand? Those who buy $5k $10k or $20k can go to the internet. Those who buy in hundreds of thousands will need the remisiers to trade big and the market also got the multiplier effect of one client becomes 10 or 20 clients in trading volume.

Today, without the remisiers, the market would have collapse long ago.

Anonymous said...

with such low trading vol since SGX implemented no break trading, it's really foolish for SGX to continue to implement such long trading hour w/o lunch break.. it is really @#$%^^&&FF unproductive. Ppl involved in the biz and clients as well all thing tt SGX has been paying someone millions of $ w/o any sense in regards to our culture & business environments. The ang moh in charge only thing of how to keep his millions $ pay cheque w/O producing any effective way to improve overall biz after spending millions of $ in fail acquisitions and projects. We all wonder why is he still there....#$$%%^^^%&^&ff

Anonymous said...

The no lunch break is to cater for computer trading and preparing for HFT. It is not meant for humans.

Anonymous said...

Would the society fight for the return of lunch break as it is totally useless and does not increase trading volume or income of remisiers. It is getting worst.

With the pathetic income, might as well enjoy a proper lunch break instead.

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