M2 or CPI: what does “the value of SGD” actually mean?
Compare money-supply share and consumer purchasing power, with a worked example and a checklist for reading SGD calculations.
Read more →Notes
Practical explanations of money supply, prices and exchange rates, with sources and calculators.
Singapore 2026 GDP growth forecast: how MTI and IMF revisions caught up
Singapore's official 2026 growth forecast rose from 1.0-3.0% in November 2025 to 4.5-5.5% in August 2026, and the IMF now expects 5.0%. Actual growth averaged about 6% in the first three quarters, above every earlier forecast.
Read more →Singapore GDP vs national income: did terms of trade help or hurt in 2026?
Singapore publishes no real GDI or trading gain figure. Its export and import price data show no Korea-style windfall in 2026: merchandise terms of trade fell while oil prices spiked, and more income was paid abroad.
Read more →CPF interest rates vs inflation: did 4% and 2.5% beat prices and money supply over 10 years?
CPF pays statutory interest, not investment returns. From 2016 to 2025 the Special Account's roughly 4% grew S$100,000 to about S$148,200 and the Ordinary Account's 2.5% to about S$128,000, while consumer prices rose 20.1%. Since December 2021 both fell short of money supply growth.
Read more →Rice prices in Singapore dollars: how high is world rice in history, and why do shop prices move differently?
The World Bank's Thai 5% rice benchmark averaged S$601 a tonne in August 2026, about S$0.60 a kilogram. That ranks 142nd of 548 months since 1981, and near the bottom since 2000 after inflation. Singapore's rice CPI rose 2.5% in a year, far less than the 24.8% rise in the benchmark.
Read more →Gold has fallen about 26% from its peak: how far in Singapore dollars, and how long did past slumps last?
Converted at the day's exchange rates, gold fell from about S$7,112 an ounce on 29 January 2026 to about S$5,271 on 21 October, down 25.9%. On monthly averages the fall is 11.4% to August. Past slumps took 40 to 100 months to recover in Singapore dollars.
Read more →US inflation is 3.7%: why is Singapore's lower, and what does the gap mean for your money?
Singapore's headline inflation was 2.3% in August 2026, against 3.4% in the US the same month and 3.7% in September. Since 2020 Singapore was lower in 60 of 75 comparable months; the exception was December 2022 to February 2024, when GST rises and car prices pushed it above the US.
Read more →Singapore owes more than France relative to GDP. Why does it borrow at half the rate?
On IMF figures Singapore's gross government debt is 166.4% of GDP against France's 118.5%, yet on 16 October 2026 its 10-year yield was 2.34% against France's 4.79%. The difference lies in why Singapore borrows and what it holds.
Read more →MSCI market classification: what developed, emerging and standalone status mean for Singapore
Singapore is an MSCI Developed Market with about 0.44% of the MSCI World Index. MSCI's proposal on 15 October 2026 (New York time) to move Indonesia from Emerging to Standalone shows how an index label can move stocks and a currency.
Read more →Singapore interest rates vs the Fed: what the gap means without a policy rate
Singapore has no policy interest rate, so there is no official gap with the Fed's 4.00% upper bound. Overnight SORA was 1.40% at the end of September 2026, about 260 basis points below it, and MAS kept its S$NEER band unchanged on 14 October.
Read more →Brent oil price in Singapore dollars: how high is it in history?
A barrel of Brent averaged S$148.67 in September 2026, about S$0.94 a litre of crude. That ranks 15th of 549 months since 1981, below the 2008 peak, because a stronger Singapore dollar absorbed part of the rise. Pump prices and petrol CPI rose about 15%.
Read more →Does AI spending push up interest rates? What it means for Singapore
Big Tech plans about US$720-745 billion of capital spending in 2026 and has sold record bonds to fund it. Here are the three routes by which AI could raise interest rates, the evidence for and against, and how the boom reaches Singapore through chips and exports more than through bond yields.
Read more →Global bond yields 2026: US, UK, Germany and Japan at multi-year highs. Where is Singapore?
Ten-year yields in the US, UK, Germany and Japan hit their highest levels since 2002, 2007, 2011 and 1996 in 2026. Singapore's 10-year SGS yield rose only about 35 basis points this year and remains below the middle of its own history.
Read more →What is the yen carry trade, and how does a 3% JGB yield reach Singapore?
The yen carry trade borrows cheap yen to buy higher-yielding assets elsewhere. With Japan's 10-year yield above 3% in 2026, here is how the trade works, how big it is, what happened on 5 August 2024 and what the Singapore dollar did.
Read more →SGS vs US Treasury yield gap: does it explain USD/SGD?
Singapore's 10-year yield was 240 basis points below the US 10-year at the end of August 2026, yet the Singapore dollar was near its strongest level in years at 1.28 per US dollar. Since 2016 a wider gap has gone with a stronger Singapore dollar, the opposite of the textbook.
Read more →Singapore yield curve: did the 10-year minus 2-year SGS spread predict recessions?
Singapore's 10-year minus 2-year SGS spread was 65 basis points in August 2026, about half its long-run average. It inverted for 21 months from November 2022, yet GDP shrank in only one quarter, by 0.1%. Here is the record since 1998.
Read more →Singapore 10-year SGS yield: how high is 2.35% in its own history?
The 10-year Singapore Government Securities yield ended August 2026 at 2.35%. Across 339 month-ends since June 1998 it ranks 208th, below the middle of its own history, while US, UK and Japanese yields sit at multi-decade highs.
Read more →DCA into the S&P 500 from Singapore: S$500 a month for 10 years became S$119,219
S$500 a month into the S&P 500 from October 2016 to September 2026 turned S$60,000 into S$119,219 (1.99x). The Nasdaq-100 reached S$164,400, and 20 years reached S$898,439. How the stronger Singapore dollar cut 2.10x to 1.99x, lump sum vs DCA, and Singapore tax, CPFIS and SRS facts.
Read more →Singapore's current-account surplus is 17% of GDP. Why doesn't the Singapore dollar soar?
Singapore earned a current-account surplus of S$132.0 billion in 2025 and S$77.9 billion in the first half of 2026. The balance of payments shows most of it was invested abroad again, and the rest added to reserves under MAS's exchange-rate policy.
Read more →S&P 500 returns in Singapore dollars: how much did the stronger SGD take off in 2026?
The S&P 500 rose 20.3% in US dollars in the year to August 2026 but 19.5% in Singapore dollars, because the rate fell from S$1.2847 to S$1.2763 per US dollar. The formula, a S$10,000 example, timing, withholding tax and hedging.
Read more →What is chipflation? Singapore laptops +26%, CPI PCs −2%
Chipflation is the AI-driven memory shortage raising gadget prices. Singapore laptop prices rose 26%, yet the CPI for computers fell 2.0% in August 2026.
Read more →When does tighter monetary policy reach Singapore borrowers?
MAS tightened twice in 2026 via the exchange rate band, not an interest rate. Why Singapore loan rates follow foreign rates, and how long rate rises take.
Read more →Higher rates, bigger debt: why the money stock keeps growing
The Fed raised rates on 16 September 2026, yet US M2 growth rose from 4.04% to 5.41%. A policy rate pushes a money stock two ways at once. Singapore is a useful case because its policy instrument is the exchange rate band, not an interest rate.
Read more →Policy rates and ten-year yields across 11 markets
Singapore is the only market in this comparison with no policy rate at all, because MAS runs monetary policy through an exchange rate band. That leaves one cell blank in the table, and the blank cell is the most useful thing in it.
Read more →Singapore's tourism receipts rose 18.3% in Singapore dollars and 23.4% in US dollars — the gap runs the other way from Japan's
Tourism receipts went from S$27,689 million in 2019 to S$32,755 million in 2025. Because the Singapore dollar strengthened, the same change is larger in US dollars. In Japan the same comparison produces a 44.3% rise in yen and a 5.1% rise in dollars.
Read more →Cash and deposits are 32.36% of Singapore household financial assets — CPF alone is 31.21%
Household financial assets reached S$2,207.1 billion in the second quarter of 2026. Currency and deposits are 32.36% of that, down from 36.88% at the end of 2015, while shares and securities rose from 17.59% to 20.19%.
Read more →Singapore's currency in circulation tripled since 2009 — and the last official cash-use figure is from 2015
Gross currency in circulation went from S$23.3 billion at the end of 2009 to S$72.8 billion in July 2026. How much of that gets spent is the question Singapore has the least data to answer: the most recent official measure of cash use dates from 2015.
Read more →Singapore's short-term external debt is 372.7% of reserves — and nobody calls that a risk
On the Guidotti–Greenspan benchmark Singapore has the weakest reading of the nine Asian markets compared here, while the three that actually collapsed in 1997 now pass easily. The ratio is not broken; it measures a different thing in a financial centre.
Read more →How far did the Singapore dollar fall in each crisis, and how fast did it come back?
The Singapore dollar fell 23.1% in the 1997 episode and between 5.0% and 11.8% in the four since. What separates it from the rest of the region is the return: four of the five episodes were recovered within seven months.
Read more →When money growth falls and prices keep rising
Tightening reaches prices through credit and the money supply, not directly. Trace that path, then read the months when Singapore and US money growth were slow while consumer prices rose fast.
Read more →Why Singapore is the market where 'the government gains from inflation' does not follow
Government debt equals 146.9% of Singapore-dollar M2, yet MOF states that borrowing proceeds are invested as reserves and cannot fund expenditure. This note works through what a 1.76% price rise does and does not transfer.
Read more →A payout fixed today, collected in 5 years: what is it worth?
A sum assured, a fixed annuity or a guaranteed maturity value fixes a number, not a value. Here is what 2021-07 → 2026-06 of money supply and consumer prices did to a S$500,000 payout in Singapore, and what each benchmark cannot tell you.
Read more →Money keeps growing — is buying assets now always better? 45 years of the SGD
The SGD went from 2.0812 to 1.2763 per USD between January 1981 and August 2026, so holding cash did not always lose. Four global rate regimes show which asset won.
Read more →How a supply shock reaches your currency
Freight, refining, inflation, bond yields, exchange rate: the 2026 energy shock traced through five measurable steps, and what each step does not tell you.
Read more →Why exchange rates change a US benchmark expressed in SGD
Follow the three-step conversion from SGD to USD and back, and see how currency movements can change a money-value comparison.
Read more →Why the M2 counter moves: reading the SGD trend estimate
Understand the clock-based M2 projection, its reference month, annual growth assumption and the difference from published statistics.
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