First Resources

With no dot plots and little guidance on rate hikes, traders place extra weight on Kevin Walsh speech. a hawkish hint can now cause a relatively huge wave in the market

Warsh’s hawkish tone reinforces the Fed’s focus on persistent inflation rather than recent cooling data. The sharp rise in September hike expectations signals greater policy uncertainty and could keep Treasury yields elevated, strengthening the dollar while pressuring rate-sensitive equities, particularly growth and technology stocks. However, the Fed remains data-dependent, with upcoming employment and inflation reports likely to determine the September decision.

It looks like Warsh is hawkish but is he really? He has to look credible as data still points to inflation being sticky.

Increase rate will help banks and disfavored businesses that require to take loans or those who require to refinance soon. REIT most likely will be down in the short term but it is fall sharply will be a good time to get in DCA when everyone is fearful of REIT but might provide a good dividend play in SG.

Nothing surprising with Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech. He has to state what is in line with the data and data does not point to inflation being tamed yet.

Warsh is just dodging the question and trying to shift it to the market. But market doesn’t seem to buy it

Any weakness in the REITs sector is an opportunity to consider for a long term investor. For many, they have or are giving up on REITs but one man's poison is anothers gourmet buffet.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered an unexpected hawkish surprise in his keynote speech at the Jackson Hole annual meeting on Friday, warning that inflation trends have not yet "significantly improved" and raising the probability of a September rate hike from about one-third to even odds.

The rate hike news will weigh down the stock market, while bank lending stocks are expected to climb.

Catching this tailwind, shares of Singapore's three major banks are set to see another pullback after dividend payouts.

📌 Will be watching the movement of a few stocks the effect after this week ended. In short, August wrapped up a much better week than last month across the board hitting downwards trend. Just read Jensen on X, USD400B has been invested in AI in the past 6 months alone, what else could fail it does not make sense, only a matter of time to let it materialize, which stocks will be gg up later session to close a good month to move into Sept? I have my own bets done what about you all?🇺🇸🤺✈️⚙️🦾⬆️🆕🏆💯❤️

Out of many US Stocks lowers, Amazon(AMZN.US), Meta Platforms, and Alphabet US Stocks rose.

Straits Times rose while local banks traded steadily. First Resources profit jumped with dividend doubled.

China stocks shares lower and increase.

Hope markets can improve and even in terms of employment.

It’s interesting to see Shein HKEX debut. Never would have guessed the fast fashion empire would IPO as I see consumers are becoming more thoughtful about their purchases and the impacts it has.

Was the he new chairman of the Federal Reserve said anything last Friday ? because when I open up my eye the next morning, all my sell put kena

I think it is just noise. It is just a speech, at the end of the day, they will still make the decisions based on the data. Any good or bad data will easily overwrite the views expressed in that speech.

🦎 IGGY MORNING BRIEF, 14 AUGUST 2026

☕ Good morning, Iguanas. SGX opens at 9 am SGT. Dense session — results, fund-flow shifts, and household relief to cover.

OVERNIGHT US SUMMARY

Wall Street records: Dow +0.13% (53,840), S&P +0.65% (7,799), Nasdaq +0.81% (26,803). Softer wholesale inflation + crude oil -2.1% eased rate fears, lifting tech/semis. VIX flat at 14.55. For SGX, cheaper oil matters more than the records.

SGX PRE-OPEN

USD/SGD 1.2803. Brent $87.11/bbl (-2.1%) — welcome pause after recent gains.

SINGAPORE NEWS

Cost-of-living payout: Govt confirms S$400–S$600 cash for 2.4 million citizens in Sept — ~$1B package. Not portfolio-relevant but household-significant.

NODX upgrade: Enterprise Singapore raises forecast after Q2 NODX +27.4%; electronics +88.1% on AI demand — hard export numbers confirm the growth story.

Sembcorp Industries: Interim dividend raised to 11¢ despite net profit -25% due to $155M one-off Alinta acquisition costs — signals operating confidence. However, MSCI will drop Sembcorp from global benchmarks (effective 31 Aug, along with GoTo & Ayala Land). Index removal = passive selling pressure, irrespective of fundamentals.

First Resources: 1H26 net profit +57.4% to $234.9M USD, declares 8¢ dividend. This was on my watchlist pending yield confirmation — new data now allows proper assessment.

Banks: Diverging Q2 outlooks for local banks; China tax rules flagged as new watch item (detail pending). DBS reshuffles HK, Taiwan, Indonesia market heads — leadership, not numbers.

IGGY’S GAME PLAN

Busy news day, but two priorities:

Sembcorp — dividend hike vs. MSCI removal: fundamentals vs. fund flows over coming weeks.

First Resources — fresh dividend data finally enables yield assessment on a previously flagged name.

No changes to yield discipline on any registered name today.

—

Not financial advice. Iggy’s Forensic Compliance Standards apply.

$Wilmar(F34.SG)$Golden Agri-Res(E5H.SG)$First Resources(EB5.SG)$Bumitama Agri(P8Z.SG)

☀️ Heat Wave on the Horizon: How to Play the Palm Oil Sector 🌴

In my previous post, I talked about how El Niño benefits palm oil stocks by creating a supply crunch.

Today, we are going to look into each of the major SGX-listed palm oil stocks. To understand exactly how they react to these changing weather patterns and where the best fundamental value lies.

Weather forecasts are pointing toward severe heat waves. For Palm oil industry, extreme heat dries up crop yields, tightens global supply, and sends Crude Palm Oil (CPO) prices soaring. 🚀

However not all palm oil stocks are created equal. You need to know who wins when supply drops:

⭐️ The Top Pick: First Resources (SGX: EB5) - S$3.28

As a pure-play upstream grower, its earnings are highly sensitive to rising CPO prices. Thanks to its recent ANJ acquisition, its expanded geographic footprint gives it excellent operational resilience to handle localized weather shocks

P/E: ~11.1x | Yield: ~4.5%

💰 The Income Pick: Bumitama Agri (SGX: P8Z) - S$1.68

Boasting high-yielding, mature estates, BAL captures massive upside from spot prices. Plus, their newly upgraded 60%–75% dividend payout framework makes it a premier passive income play.

P/E: ~14.0x | Yield: ~5.6%

🔄 The Value Play: Golden Agri-Resources (SGX: E5H)- S$0.27

Deeply discounted on paper, but currently navigating a heavy, expensive replanting cycle. A longer-term turn-around play.

🛡 The Defensive Hedge: Wilmar International (SGX: F34) - S$3.70

A massive downstream food giant. Higher CPO prices actually increase their input costs, meaning they act as a stable consumer-staple hedge rather than a direct weather play.

Which strategy fits your portfolio? Are you hunting for high dividend yields or timing a technical breakout on CPO spot prices? Let’s discuss below! 👇

Not financial advice. Do your DD.

Two Palm Oil Names, Two Opposite Stories | Weekly Winners & Losers | EP1655🦖

Two listeners wrote to me this week, one cheering a double digit gain in Bumitama, the other staring at a loss in First Resources, both blaming palm oil prices. The uncomfortable truth is that the same commodity wind can create opposite outcomes when one management team treats debt as a weapon and the other treats it as a last resort. The price chart is not where your real risk is hiding.

If you are using plantation stocks inside CPF or SRS for dividends, the S$0.0935 payout at a 5.6% yield feels like the hero of this story, until you place it beside 57.2% gearing on the other counter and ask which one can keep paying when credit tightens. One sits in Iggy's Forensic Zone: Zone 2, the other in Zone 4, not as a verdict on the share price, but as a signal of how much balance sheet strain your retirement income is underwriting.

$Bumitama Agri(P8Z.SG)

📺 YouTube: https://youtu.be/F03E1saQ9DY

📩 Substack: https://investingiguana.com/p/two-palm-oil-names-two-opposite-stories

The market narrative is increasingly shifting toward a coordinated pro-growth, pro-AI policy backdrop, with US-China détente, clearer crypto regulation, and sustained hyperscaler spending reinforcing confidence across the AI supply chain. However, parabolic price action across semis and adjacent infrastructure also raises near-term positioning risk, especially after rapid multi-name re-ratings. A balanced approach may favour selective exposure to structural beneficiaries — AI infrastructure, data-centre enablers, and commodity-linked cashflow names — over indiscriminate momentum chasing. In Singapore, dispersion is widening sharply, suggesting active sector rotation and earnings selectivity may outperform broad indexing in this phase.

The market has been going up and looks like it keeps doing so. But I am still cautious and prefer not to join the FOMO club. Stay defensive.

Be careful my friends. The market looks like it is going up but only a few names are propping the market up. Looks like a concerted effort by smart money to keep distributing under the hood. Stay safe!