Iggy's Journal: US Treasury Yields Just Hit 4.8 Percent. Here's What That Actually Means for Your SGX Portfolio
2 September 2026, AM

Overnight Read:
Tuesday was a rough session on Wall Street. Dow down 0.79% to 52,766.88, S&P 500 down 0.71% to 7,631.47, Nasdaq down 1.03% to 26,099.77, tech hardware taking the worst of it, Micron down 2.6%, AMD down 2.4%, Dell down 6.8%. The driver was renewed military strikes in the Persian Gulf pushing crude sharply higher, which fed straight into bond yields, the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.797%. Fed Chair Warsh added to the pressure, flagging persistent inflation and signaling policy may need to stay restrictive, or tighten further, if price pressures don't ease. VIX jumped 9.52% to 16.34. Brent settled up 4.6% at $94.65 a barrel per Business Times' own reporting, worth flagging that this sits a bit apart from the wider $91.50 to $95.22 range other feeds logged for the same session, so treat the exact figure as directional rather than perfectly reconciled.

Locally, the STI dropped 0.78% to 5,710, touching an intraday low of 5,697.81, on broad blue-chip weakness including Singapore Exchange and GuocoLand, down 0.45% to S$2.20. MAS also opened a public consultation on Payment Services Act amendments to regulate single-currency stablecoins, and Enterprise Singapore's enhanced 70% SME loan risk-share officially took effect today.

My Personal Take:
A 10-year Treasury at 4.8% is the number I'd actually sit with this morning, more than the daily index moves either side of the Pacific. Rising Treasury yields tend to work against S-REITs specifically, since their valuations get priced against exactly that kind of benchmark rate, a higher risk-free rate makes a given REIT yield look less attractive by comparison, all else equal. Banks generally fare better in this environment, higher rates can support net interest margins, though that's a tailwind, not a guarantee. If you're holding a REIT-heavy income portfolio in CPF or SRS, this is the macro backdrop worth watching over the next few sessions, not any single day's STI move, which today looks more like broad risk-off following Wall Street than a story specific to any one name.

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

Cheers, Iggy 🦖