Chart of the Day: Utility stocks start strong with 17% average returns in 2019 YTD

The best performing stocks were China Jinjiang Environment and China Everbright Water.

Singapore's top five utility stocks opened the year on solid footing as average total returns hit 17% in 2019 YTD following an average decline of 31% in 2018, according to a note from SGX Research.

"The Utilities Sector led market cap weighted sector performances in Dec 2018 & Jan 2019," the firm noted.

Also read: STI annualised returns hit 9.2% in 2018

The five stocks - Keppel Infrastructure Trust, CITIC Envirotech, China Everbright Water, China Jinjiang Environment and SIIC Environment Holdings - received net institutional inflow of $1.9m for the six weeks ending 7 February. Together, they have a market cap of $5.7b.

The best performing utility stocks out of the five was China Jinjiang Environment after generating a 27.2% in total return to reverse a 25.9% loss it suffered in 2018. It was followed by China Everbright which hit returns of 18.3% whilst CITIC Envirotech had early year gains of 17.1% on the back of increased trading volumes.

SIIC Environment Holdings and Keppel Infrastructure Trust hit average returns of 16.4% and 6% respectively.

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