Kimly at a 17% Discount: Time to Grab a 5.48% Dividend Yield Before the Mainboard Move?

Hi Folks, welcome back to Investment Income for Life!

Today we are going to discuss an interesting opportunity that has opened up for one of Singapore's favourite coffeeshop operators - Kimly Ltd. The share price has pulled back from its peak, and for patient dividend investors, this may be a window worth paying attention to for both dividends and capital appreciation. Let's dive in.

1. The Opportunity: A 17% Discount To The Recent Peak

On May 7, 2026, DBS initiated coverage of Kimly Ltd. Applying a PE multiple of 18 times earnings, the bank arrived at a target price of S$0.52 per share.

The market liked what it heard. Kimly rallied to over S$0.44 by mid May 2026 on the back of the bullish analyst report.

Here is the good news for those who have not bought into Kimly yet. The share price has since cooled off to S$0.365 per share as at Oct 15, 2026. Relative to the peak of S$0.44, that is a discount of about 17% on your entry price. Measured against the DBS target of S$0.52, there is a potential upside of roughly 42%, before dividends.

And speaking of dividends - at S$0.365, the forward dividend yield works out to 5.48% per annum. That is based on Kimly's steady S$0.01 per share payout made twice a year (S$0.02 per year). Not too shabby for a business that sells kopi and chicken rice to Singaporeans every single day.

2. Things To Note About The New Kimly: Moving Up To The Mainboard

On August 17, 2026, Kimly's board of directors decided to transfer the company's listing from the Catalist Board to the SGX Mainboard. An EGM will be held in January 2027 to seek approval from existing shareholders.

Why does this matter? A Mainboard listing generally puts a company on the radar of a wider pool of investors, including funds that are not allowed to invest in Catalist stocks. This should hopefully boost trading liquidity, and in time, could help narrow any valuation discount Kimly suffers as a Catalist counter.

3. A Shift Towards An Asset Heavy Model

Another point to note is that Kimly seems to be embarking on a more asset heavy operating model. The group recently announced the acquisition of a coffeeshop at Haig Road for a purchase consideration of S$11.8 million.

The deal is financed through a mix of:

   a) External bank borrowings of S$5.8 million;

   b) A shareholder loan of S$5.0 million; and

   c) Internal cash reserves.

Owning the property rather than leasing it gives Kimly more control over its outlets and protects it from rental hikes. The trade-off is higher borrowings and more capital tied up in bricks and mortar. As income investors, we will want to keep a close eye on gearing, interest costs and, most importantly, whether the dividend payout remains intact.

4. My Personal Action On Kimly Over The Last 6 Months

Full transparency, folks. I sold off more than half of my stake in Kimly on May 7, 2026 when the price shot up to S$0.42 per share. Locking in profits on a sharp, news-driven spike seems to have paid off.

Thereafter, I bought back some Kimly shares in the S$0.39 to S$0.405 range. Today, I just added additional shares at S$0.37 per share. I will be adding even more shares soon if the current share price weakness persists. For me, Kimly remains a steady dividend payer in a very defensive, needs-based business.

5. Kimly Share Price - The Past 12 Months At A Glance

Here is how Kimly's monthly closing share price has moved over the past 12 months:

A few observations from the chart:

   a) Kimly has traded in a fairly tight band of roughly S$0.375 to S$0.43 on a monthly closing basis over the year. This is a low volatility stock, which suits income investors well.

   b) Trading volume spiked in January 2026 (about 20.0 million shares) and May 2026 (about 17.9 million shares), the two months when buying interest was strongest.

   c) The share price has drifted lower since August 2026, which is exactly the kind of weakness long-term dividend investors can use to accumulate.

6. Final Thoughts

Kimly offers a 5.48% forward yield, a potential re-rating catalyst from the Mainboard transfer, and a share price that sits about 17% below its recent peak. Do keep an eye on the higher borrowings from the Haig Road acquisition, and as always, do your own due diligence before investing. This post is not a buy or sell recommendation.

Ok folks, that's all from me today. Have a great week ahead!

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Singapore Bank Stocks Just Fell Hard. Are They Overvalued, or Is This a Normal Pullback or A Major Crash Coming?

Hi Folks, welcome back to Investment Income For Life. For most of 2026, owning DBS, UOB and OCBC was easy. Then on 7–8 October the three banks lost between 6% and 10% in just two trading days. Many investors are now asking whether the rally went too far and there are many posts on social media talking about it and there are a lot of fear mongering on further crashes in banking stock prices.

1. What happened? 

On 8 October DBS closed at S$73.85, UOB at S$40.25 and OCBC at S$29.00. Two days earlier they were at about S$78.56, S$43.72 and S$32.20. OCBC fell the most after Citi downgraded it to “Sell”. Citi expects flat third-quarter earnings and also pointed to a weaker wealth-management outlook and valuations above regional peers. Other reasons given for the sell-off:

(i) The US 10-year Treasury yield rose to 5.32%.

(ii) Bank shares were being sold around the world.

(iii) Investors took profits after a very strong run.

2. My Personal Perspective and Thoughts. 

Even after the drop, DBS is still up about 36% over 12 months, UOB about 14% and OCBC about 72%. OCBC now trades at about 2.1 times book value, up from roughly 1.4 times at the end of 2025. That is where the “overvalued” worry comes from.

3. Three ways to handle it if you hold these banking stocks

(i) Look at the drop against August prices, and keep holding. The fall looks much smaller next to prices two months ago than next to the September peak. OCBC traded around S$29–30 in early August, which is about where it is now. DBS (S$73.36) and UOB (S$40.25) are back near their mid-to-late August levels. If you bought for the long term and the dividends, giving back about two months of gains may be no reason to change your plan.

(ii) Worried about valuations? Sell half lor. If high price-to-book ratios make you uneasy, a common middle path is to sell half of each bank position. You lock in part of a very good year, but you still collect dividends and keep some upside if prices recover. It also takes away the pressure of having to call the top exactly right. This was my approach to OCBC back in August 2026 when it traded above S$29 per share and sold around half of it and re-invest the proceeds into other non-banking stocks.

(iii) Optimistic? Then try buying more during the current price correction lah. Some investors believe higher interest rates will lift banks’ net interest margins (the gap between what banks earn on loans and pay on deposits). They also expect wealth management to keep growing while rates stay high. For them, a 7–10% pullback from record highs is a chance to buy, and some analysts still see upside for DBS and UOB. A fair warning: some analysts expect the opposite. They see rising deposit competition and a lower SORA (Singapore’s benchmark interest rate) squeezing margins. Buying in two or three smaller lots ahead of the third-quarter results lowers the risk of buying too early.

Personal Thoughts

Honestly, I am not sure why there seems to be a ruckus being made due to the sharp plunge in valuation over 1-2 days. DBS, UOB and OCBC are definitely over-priced and this ecstasy cannot keep running up forever especially when we are talking about the Singapore SGX. So, if one is super worried about further crash such that you can no longer sleep peacefully at night, then just sell half of one's current holdings. Ok folks, that's all from me today. Have a great week ahead!

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Crazy Donald Trump Sending 3rd Aircraft Carrier Group and 10,000 US Troops To Middle East- The Art of the Deal.

Hi Folks, welcome back to Investment Income For Life. The crazy Donald Trump and the worst President in US History is sending a 3rd US aircraft carrier strike group (the USS Theodore Roosevelt) and also an additional 10,000 US ground troops to the Middle East. So by the end of November 2026, we will see 3 aircraft carrier groups and also 2 amphibious landing groups positioned extremely near Iran. So looks like Donald Trump is planning to escalate the war with some ground operations. No wonder there has been so much volatility in the stock market lately especially for SREITs. Looks like grappling with interest rate hikes from the US Federal Reserve is not enough.....Trump is back with his crazy antics and more of his "Art of the Deal" negotiation tactics against Iran.  

Here is the greatest irony: US is grappling with a shortage of munitions but then Trump just sent the 3rd US aircraft carrier strike group out with threats of new bombardment campaign against Iran (and possibly ground troops entering Iranian soil for special operations). Additionally, such massive deployment will mean more exorbitant cost incurred for the Iran war. US is already facing a record fiscal deficit. Oil prices remained high at over US$100 per barrel with the latest announcement. Most economic sectors are already facing substantial increase in business cost due to high energy prices for the past year. 

Will the escalation in US-Iran war be the last straw that broke the camel's back and trigger off a global recession?

Market Crash For Bonds, Equities and Gold- Is a Recession Coming?

Hi Folks, welcome back to Investment Income For Life! Wow, so many YouTube videos on plunging asset prices. SREITs continue to spiral downwards with an all year low. The scary thing on everyone’s mind is how low will SREIT crash to. Bonds is not spared and even US Treasury are getting whacked with so many institutional selling off of US long term bonds despite soaring record yield of 5.3%- so even risk free US 10 year bond is no longer perceived as risk free….haha. Even Gold price, the safe haven asset, has started plunging. Those who bought at the high of US$5,264 per oz earlier in February 2026 would have been devastated by the crash of more than 20% to current level of around US$4,100 per oz within half a year. Against this backdrop of plunging investment assets prices, there are more and more news published of folks losing their jobs. So is a recession coming? Also is it time to sell off some equities to prevent further dip in the investment portfolio? 

1. Sell off Equities Investment To Wait For Sell-off Momentum To Be Over?

Well, folks who have read my blog post will know that I am not a fan of market timing and speculation. Also, if the market started to rally after one has sell-off, then it would be a very painful and regretful investment decision (not to mention foolish). So far, only my SREITs is free-falling. My HKEX Tech stocks have fallen but they still remained in an acceptable range especially Alibaba which is still above my average cost. Of course, if I have a crystal ball, I would have sold off half of my SREITs in the beginning of the year. Also, I would have sold off Alibaba when it touched HKD180 previously on hindsight…haha…but then we cannot reverse time right?

I am staying away from most SREITs for now despite the very attractive new prices for REITS such as Capitaland Ascendas REIT, Mapletree family REITs etc. Nevertheless, I took a nibble (S$2k to S$3K) into additional United Hampshire US REIT (“UHREIT”) which is giving close to a 9.9% yield. I may further accumulate it if its price plunged further.  On UHREIT, the complexity lies in assigning a depreciation rate to the USD vs SGX forex loss due to US printing money and mammoth budget deficit. From table 1, it is best to prepare for a negative depreciation in USD investment of -2.6% per year. So a yield of 9.9% from UHREIT true-up will mean around 7.3% of distribution yield compensation for grocery related strip malls. Also, pray hard that Donald Trump will not come up with new withholding taxes on REITs with US holdings.

Table 1- USD vs SGD Decline %

2. US Government and Corporate Bonds.

While there are many doom day videos on US Treasury, I personally think that it is overly done. The record high yield of over 6% to 6.5% yield for some of the commercial bonds at AA- ratings is becoming very attractive. Compare to diving in to grab SREITs, I actually prefer to put more of my money into a diversified portfolio of bonds especially those that hold bonds for only mid term tenure of 3-5 years. 

I think that once the AI boom worldwide gradually slow down (we are already seeing AI CEOs coming out to give excuses using AI safety and the necessity of slowing down the rolling out of new frontier models), the US Fed will need to start cutting rates again in order to drive much needed growth for the stagnant US Economy. Once rate are cut, bond prices will have capital appreciation. So earn the 6% plus in annual yield and enjoy future potential capital gain. I don’t think US Treasury is going down the path of being worthless immediately.  

 

3. Gold As Alternative Asset During Economic Crisis

I can only say that I am glad that I have sold off my few thousand dollars foray into Gold before the peak of February 2026 for a small profit. Who would have thought that the gold craze party will end so abruptly in just another half a year and also while amidst the ongoing Russian Ukraine war as well as US-Iran war? I am staying away from Gold. But if it dropped to the US$ 3,000 level, I would think then that it is probably a good idea to get some to diversify my investment portfolios as I like its non sticky correlation to other class of investable assets.

Parting Thoughts

I think that there is currently a lot of market volatility and also potential further plunge in equity investments especially high interest rate that surely will crash the fragile marco economic environment sustained only by AI. As such, my preference now is to keep most of my dividends to build up cash reserves and also invest into bond funds. Should equities crash further, I will sell off most of my bonds funds and switched them into buying blue-chip SREITs at high yield of 6.5%-7%+.  

(Note: Please also see my latest investment portfolios as at 16 September 2026 here.)