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• STI last closed at 5,179.17 on Friday (Nov 6), down 2.2% for the week; SGX was shut Monday for Deepavali and reopens today.
• US rebound: Dow +2.15%, S&P 500 +2.4%, Nasdaq +2.74% overnight as oil's slide eased inflation nerves.
• Oil slumped — Brent settled 5.9% lower just above $92/bbl, an eight-month low, on US-Iran nuclear talks progress.
• CPI watch: October US CPI lands 9.30pm SGT tonight (consensus +0.3% m/m, core +0.2%).

Singapore Open

The SGX reopens this morning after Monday's Deepavali holiday, leaving the benchmark to play catch-up with a strong Wall Street session and a sharp slide in crude. The Straits Times Index last closed at 5,179.17 on Friday (Nov 6), down 2.2% for the week. With US equities up more than 2% overnight and oil down roughly 6%, the reopening bias skews positive, led by the three banks and fuel-sensitive carriers.

$DBS (D05.SG)$ ended Friday at S$69.72, down 3.78% for the week after third-quarter net profit missed estimates, falling 5% to S$2.81 billion as markets trading income sank 65% to S$152 million. Income investors should note the bank's S$0.81 Q3 dividend goes ex-date on Nov 13. $UOB (U11.SG)$ closed at S$36.83, down 10.27% for the week despite Q3 net profit jumping 182% to S$1.25 billion — it still missed the S$1.38 billion consensus. $OCBC (O39.SG)$ closed at S$27.73, down 4.28% for the week, after posting record nine-month net profit of S$6.24 billion, up 10% year on year.

Cheaper crude is a direct tailwind for $Singapore Airlines (C6L.SG)$ and transport names via lower jet-fuel costs, while the tech-led US rally may lift Singapore's semiconductor-adjacent industrials.

Singapore Macro

MAS's October policy statement flagged that MAS Core Inflation rose to 2.1% y-o-y in July-August, from 1.5% in Q2, as higher import costs passed through to goods and services; the central bank still sees 2026 core inflation averaging 1.5-2.0% and headline CPI around 2.0%. September core inflation printed 2.0% y-o-y, with the October reading due Nov 24. GDP growth came in at 1.1% q-o-q in Q3, a touch slower than Q2.

The transmission for SGX names: a near-6% slump in Brent eases the imported-inflation impulse MAS has been watching, which in turn reduces pressure for further SGD NEER tightening. But if US inflation stays hot and the Fed hikes again in December (markets price roughly 80% odds), local interest rates and bank funding costs stay elevated — a mixed bag that supports bank net interest margins while keeping REIT financing costs firm.

What Happened While Markets Were Closed

Progress in US-Iran nuclear talks was the dominant theme. Brent futures slumped 5.9% to settle just above $92/bbl — their lowest since August — on reports Washington and Tehran are nearing a deal on uranium enrichment, with plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and release $6-9 billion of frozen Iranian assets. That deflated the geopolitical risk premium that had kept oil elevated for months.

US equities rallied through Monday's session, adding more than 2% across the board as the oil slide took pressure off inflation expectations — even as a fresh governance overhang kept AI leader $Nvidia (NVDA.US)$ in the red.

US Last Close

Monday's US session, which closed this morning Singapore time, saw the Dow rise 2.15% to 52,390, the S&P 500 add 2.4% to 7,556, and the Nasdaq Composite climb 2.74% to 25,253. Treasury yields eased alongside oil, helping rate-sensitive sectors. Key movers:

$AMD (AMD.US)$ +13.3% — The chipmaker jumped after announcing its fifth-generation EPYC processors will power Google Cloud's TPU 8tx systems, the first cloud TPU platform with hardware-based confidential computing. Oppenheimer upgraded the stock to Outperform with a $600 target, and AMD's data-center segment grew revenue 97% y-o-y last quarter. The win reinforces the case that AI infrastructure spending is broadening beyond a single vendor.

$Nvidia (NVDA.US)$ -4.3% — Shares fell even as peers rallied, after the board launched an independent investigation into CEO Jensen Huang over reports he was the target of a foreign intelligence effort (an affair with a suspected Chinese operative). The stock trimmed steeper early losses into the close but still trades about 13% below its 200-day average, at a forward P/E near 11.8x versus Intel's 33.3x. Nvidia reports Q3 results on Nov 17.

$Tesla (TSLA.US)$ +5.5% — The stock rebounded on the decision to halt Cybertruck production and shift capacity to the Cybercab robotaxi, with Musk framing the move as an opportunity-cost call rather than a demand problem.

Asia Pre-Market

US index futures were little changed in early Tuesday trade as traders braced for the CPI release. Brent held just above $92/bbl after Monday's slide, with WTI easing toward $88. Gold rose about 1% to $4,114.5/oz (spot traded above $4,148), while Bitcoin hovered near $74,900 after dipping to roughly $73,800 over the weekend. The signal for SGX: lower energy costs and steady-to-firm risk appetite support an opening bounce, but the October CPI at 9.30pm SGT is the real swing factor for the next leg.

This Week's US Earnings and Economic Calendar

CoreWeave reports after today's close, with Cisco and Applied Materials the week's marquee names on Thursday. October CPI lands tonight without a year-over-year rate, owing to the US government shutdown.

Spotlight: $Cisco (CSCO.US)$ — The networking giant reports fiscal Q1 2027 results Thursday after the close. Consensus sits at $1.33 EPS on $18.11 billion revenue, roughly the midpoint of management's $1.32-1.34 EPS and $18.0-18.2 billion guidance. The watch item is whether AI-driven enterprise networking demand is still accelerating — making Cisco a read-through for corporate tech spending broadly, and landing in the same week as the CPI print that will shape the Fed's December decision.

One More Thing

Tonight's CPI is best framed as a rotation-versus-exit test. Monday's tape already showed the split: energy down, AI breadth up, but the most-owned AI name (Nvidia) under pressure on idiosyncratic governance news. A hot core CPI would reignite the rate-hike trade that punished rate-sensitive names last week; a soft print would let the oil-led relief rally run. Either way, the signal to watch is whether the buying broadens beyond the AI complex into banks and carriers — the names that will decide whether today's SGX reopening is a one-day bounce or the start of a real recovery.

Sources: SGX, MAS, The Straits Times, The Business Times, CNBC, Charles Schwab.

This briefing is compiled with AI assistance from market data and wire reports, and reviewed by the Longbridge editorial team before publication.

This briefing is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.