REITs, high-yield stocks are investors' top defensive plays against tariffs

KDCREIT, ST, STE, and CLAR amongst those named by CGS International analysts.

It’s time to get defensive with your investments and stocks, a brokerage firm advised Singapore investors.

Whilst Singapore is perceived to be less hit by the US’ recently announced reciprocal tariffs— getting only the 10% base rate tariff versus its Southeast Asian peers— negative spillover is likely, said CGS International analysts Mun Yee Lock and Siew Khee Lim.

Lock and Lim expect Singapore’s machinery, including apparatus and precision engineering equipment, as well as ships, boats, and other floating structures to be most affected by the tariffs.

“We reiterate our risk-off strategy in the near term, preferring stocks with more certainty in earnings, such as REITs and high dividend yield plays. We advocate investors to go for large-cap defensive names,” Lock and Lim said, naming KDCREIT, ST, STE, and CLAR.

One stock that might be hit with higher costs is SATS, which has up to 15% revenue exposure to US cargo.

However, Lock and Lim expect the impact on profitability to be partially mitigated, given a lack of readily available substitutes of similar affordability for imported goods such as fast fashion products into the US, with cost being absorbed by consumers.

Follow the link for more news on

CGSCIMB

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia