********************* 95Q1 00Q1 05Q1 10Q1 15Q1 18Q3
Singapore GDP 28.9 38.1 50.3 76.7 102.7 116.1 (in billion SGD, at current market prices)
Household Networth 425 569 672 1,079 1,503 1,844 (in billion SGD)
As a Percentage to Total Assets:
Liabilities 13.0 18.6 19.1 15.1 16.4 15.0
Currency & Deposits 16.4 16.5 16.5 18.4 19.7 19.7
Listed Securities 5.1 3.6 4.8 5.6 5.0 4.1
UT & Inv Funds 0.2 0.9 3.5 2.9 3.2 3.8
Life Insurance 1.8 3.6 8.4 7.9 7.8 8.5
Public Housing 24.8 29.3 24.7 24.7 21.9 19.3
Private Housing 33.9 24.6 21.1 23.0 23.8 24.3
CPF 12.2 12.8 13.8 13.5 15.6 17.6
https://www.singstat.gov.sg/find-data/se...atest-data
https://www.singstat.gov.sg/find-data/se...atest-data
I was curious about how much of Singaporeans' wealth are in the stock market, so I pulled out some data dating back to 1995 from the Department of Statistics. I looked at the proportion of the different asset classes across time, by comparing each asset class against the total assets. The above is an abbreviated version, and percentages were derived from the absolute figures. The raw data is available from the links.
The data is an aggregate, not average, of all households in Singapore. This means that certain household may have a higher/lower proportion in certain assets. For example, lower income groups are likely to have higher proportion in housing, than what is shown here.
Some observations:
1. Proportion of liabilities remains stable.
2. Proportion of wealth in private and public housing has fallen from almost 60% to about 43%.
3. In place of housing, several other financial assets increased in proportion. The proportion of wealth in CPF has increased from 12.2% to 17.6%.
4. Proportion of wealth in life insurance has increased from 1.8% to 8.4% in 2005, and has remained at about that level.
5. Proportion of wealth in unit trust and investment funds increased from 0.2% to 3.5% in 2005, and has remained at about that level.
6. Proportion of wealth in currency and deposits has increased slightly from 16.4% to 19.7%.
7. Proportion of wealth in listed shares and securities has remained similar, decreasing slightly from 5.1% to 4.1%.
Some comments:
I believe much of the changes observed are heavily influenced by government policies; mainly the continued changes to CPF's offering and minimum sum, and the hawkish approach to multiple home ownership and its related debt. The liberalisation of the financial services industry, such as the introduction of bancassurance, must have also been instrumental in channelling more wealth into insurance and unit trust products.
As for the listed stocks and securities, it seems that it wasn't a particularly popular asset class in 1995. And that doesn't seem to have changed since. This could be another evidence to support the argument that Singapore stocks are not richly valued.
Meanwhile, liabilities are at an acceptable level, cash proportion is at healthy. Singapore's household balance sheet looks alright. If Singapore can be considered to be in a good shape to withstand the carnage of the 2008 GFC, it can probably withstand the next financial crisis of similar magnitude, given its more balanced allocation of assets (i.e. less percentage of wealth in housing).