Insights

Leverage can magnify investment gains—but it can magnify losses even faster. When an investor borrows money to buy securities, falling prices can trigger a margin call. If the investor cannot provide more cash, the broker may sell positions. When this happens across many leveraged investors at once, forced selling can make a market decline much…

Oil is back above $100 a barrel—and that matters far beyond energy markets. On September 15, Brent crude traded around $107.55, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate reached roughly $103.27 as attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure increased fears of tighter global supply. When crude oil rises this sharply, the effects can spread into inflation, interest rates,…

Silver can behave like gold during a precious-metals rally—but its price often moves much faster in both directions. Silver climbed above $100 per ounce in January 2026, before suffering a dramatic correction. By September, it was trading around the mid-$60s. Why is silver so volatile? Because silver is simultaneously: a precious metalandan industrial commodity. That…

AI is creating a new boom in memory chips—not just GPUs. As AI data centers expand, servers require huge amounts of DRAM to store and rapidly access data. That is tightening memory supply and increasing prices. For investors, companies such as Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix have therefore become important parts of the AI infrastructure…

AI stocks have created enormous wealth—but investors are beginning to ask whether expectations have moved too far ahead of reality. On September 14, semiconductor stocks sold off sharply, with the PHLX chip index falling 5.9% as Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom and Micron came under pressure. At the same time, investors face a bigger question: Is AI…

Few events move global markets as quickly as a Federal Reserve interest-rate decision. The Fed is widely expected to raise rates by 0.25 percentage points on September 16, 2026, taking its benchmark range to 3.75%–4.00%. But why can one small rate move affect stocks, Bitcoin, gold and bonds at the same time? Because the Fed…

The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield has crossed 5%, creating a major new test for stocks. On September 15, 2026, the benchmark yield rose above 5.02%, its highest level since 2007. Rising oil prices, inflation concerns and heavy bond supply have all contributed to the move. Why should stock investors care? Because a 5% Treasury yield…

Singapore runs monetary policy differently from most major economies. The U.S. Federal Reserve changes interest rates. The European Central Bank changes interest rates. But the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) mainly manages the Singapore dollar’s exchange rate. Why? Because Singapore is a small, highly open economy where imports and exports are enormous relative to GDP.…

Singapore IPO Reality Check: Why New Listings Can Fall Below Their IPO Price An IPO price is not a guarantee of what a stock is worth after listing. Singapore’s IPO market has become much more active in 2026, but many new listings have struggled once public trading began. By early September, seven of eight companies…