Nothing wrong in wanting new SGX CEO to fix things
I beg to differ with the view that “Expectations of incoming SGX CEO should be toned down” (BT, June 12). The writer, Vincent Khoo, being a seasoned remisier himself, will do well to remember that the current SGX CEO is paid close to S$3.8 million, a king’s ransom by any measure, and the stockbroking community here has every right to have a laundry list of expectations for the new CEO. If something goes wrong, is it not in order to convene a committee of inquiry to get to the bottom of the issues and start putting things right? The writer seems to have issues with this. One wonders why.
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Natarajan A
19 June 2015
I beg to differ with the view that “Expectations of incoming SGX CEO should be toned down” (BT, June 12). The writer, Vincent Khoo, being a seasoned remisier himself, will do well to remember that the current SGX CEO is paid close to S$3.8 million, a king’s ransom by any measure, and the stockbroking community here has every right to have a laundry list of expectations for the new CEO. If something goes wrong, is it not in order to convene a committee of inquiry to get to the bottom of the issues and start putting things right? The writer seems to have issues with this. One wonders why.
For a start, I want my lunch break back - and I want it yesterday. What is wrong in asking for a proper lunch break? SGX seems to be obsessed with the “gap risk” which prevails between the time that the market breaks for lunch and when it resumes an hour later. What are the issues here? Previous letters asking SGX to explain how stock markets in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Japan cope despite having a lunch break have always drawn a blank.
Let me remind SGX that it has conveniently ignored a bigger gap risk that exists between the time that the local market closes for the day and when it resumes the following morning. How do we address this monster gap risk? Trade round the clock?
The recently introduced Minimum Trading Price initiative has not gone down well with retail investors, who have seen the value of their shareholdings decline by up to 50 per cent, as a result of indiscriminate consolidation ratios. More often than not, immediately after consolidation, the bid-offer spreads are so wide apart that nothing gets traded for days. Shouldn’t the new CEO be looking into this as well?
The new CEO may also want to try an old-school method for a start: have face-to-face meetings with members of the stockbroking community to address the various issues at hand rather than the current practice of having impersonal “public consults”.