“Singapore’s yield premium is a structural feature of its market,” he adds. The Singapore Exchange (SGX), he explains, is heavily weighted towards REITs, infrastructure trusts, utilities, banks and mature industrials, which are sectors that “lend themselves to stable cash flow generation and consistent dividend distributions.”
Although banks and REITs remain popular among dividend investors for their “yield superiority”, Tiruchelvam has identified five “dividend diamonds” listed on the SGX.
These stocks were selected based on their free cash flow (FCF) yield, dividend coverage ratio and Bloomberg’s dividend health score.
Based on this methodology, the five stocks are: First Resources, Jardine Cycle & Carriage, StarHub, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding and Jardine Matheson with dividend yields of 6.67%, 6.06%, 5.44%, 5.43% and 4.78% respectively.
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“Yangzijiang Shipbuilding leads the pack with exceptional free cash flow and a 14 times dividend cover, making its 5.4% yield alluring,” Tiruchelvam writes in his July 3 report.
Meanwhile, First Resources and StarHub offer “resilient yields” with “robust coverage”. StarHub, in particular, offers consistent payouts from its “defensive base”. Jardine Cycle & Carriage and Jardine Matheson are conglomerates with diverse sources of operating earnings, says Tiruchelvam.
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Beyond his five “diamonds”, Tiruchelvam also identified eight other stocks that have strong dividend yields. These stocks also trade more than US$3 million ($3.8 million) in average daily trading value in the last three months.
They are: Bumitama Agri, Venture Corporation, Olam Group, Genting Singapore, Wilmar International, ComfortDelGro, Thai Beverage (ThaiBev) and Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel).
Bumitama Agri has a dividend yield of 8.85%, Venture Corp has a yield of 6.62% and Olam Group has a yield of 6.38%. Genting Singapore, Wilmar, ComfortDelGro have yields of 5.67%, 5.52% and 5.47%, while ThaiBev and Singtel have yields of 5.31% and 4.39%.
SGX’s ‘moribund label’ unjust
Tiruchelvam also pushes back on long-standing criticism that the SGX has been a “moribund” market, a characterisation that is “unjust”, in his view.
Despite “relatively modest capital gains”, the Singapore bourse’s total return on equities surpassed the MSCI and its Asean peers largely due to dividends.
Between 2015 to 2025, Singapore’s benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) delivered a total return compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.3%, compared to Thailand and Malaysia’s returns of 3.2% and 2.5% respectively. “Around 80% of Singapore’s total return came from dividends, compared to less than 40% in its regional counterparts,” says the analyst.
“If one strips out the REITs and banks, there are 15 liquid stocks offering dividend yields over 5%,” he adds.
