Smaller board lots can’t fix a market run by three banks

[SINGAPORE] The Singapore Exchange (SGX) on Oct 5 finally let small investors buy shares of the local bourse’s priciest counters – including DBS, OCBC and UOB – in lots of 10 shares at a time instead of 100 shares, and plenty of them took up the offer.

But three days later, the big money sold the banks hard, and lot sizes made no difference at all.

The exchange pitched the change as part of its push to widen retail participation. These 11 stocks made up about 35 per cent of SGX trading in the first half of the year, so this was no side show.