As 2025 rolls in, investors may be curious to know which stocks can do well in the New Year.
Oftentimes, these are the businesses that enjoy some catalysts this year that can help to carry the momentum over into the New Year.
Several companies may also enjoy long-term tailwinds that continue to benefit their business in the medium term, allowing them to post higher revenue, profits, and dividends.
Here are four interesting Singapore stocks to watch for as we say goodbye to 2024 and welcome in 2025.
iFAST Corporation Limited (SGX: AIY)
iFAST is a financial technology (fintech) firm that operates a platform for the buying and selling of unit trusts, equities, and bonds.
The group reported a stellar set of financial results for the first nine months of 2024 (9M 2024) as its Hong Kong ePension contract’s contributions kicked in.
Net revenue shot up 75.5% year on year to S$183.5 million while operating profit nearly tripled year on year to S$60.1 million.
Net profit went from just S$15.1 million to S$47.4 million in 9M 2024.
iFAST also saw healthy net inflows of S$2.3 billion during the period, which pushed its assets under administration (AUA) to a new record high of S$23.62 billion.
The group declared an interim dividend of S$0.015 for the quarter, 15% higher than the S$0.013 paid out a year ago.
Management believes that the ePension division will become an important growth driver for the group in 2024 and 2025, while its core wealth management platform should continue to show healthy growth.
Looking over to the group’s digital banking division, iFAST Global Bank saw its customer deposits more than double year on year to S$805.63 million as of 30 September 2024.
iFAST expects its digital bank to also become an important growth driver in 2025 and beyond.
DBS Group (SGX: D05)
DBS is Singapore’s largest bank by market capitalisation and is also a familiar name to many Singaporeans.
The blue-chip lender performed very well this year as elevated interest rates buoyed its net interest income, while resilient consumer spending also benefitted its non-interest income.
For the first nine months of 2024 (9M 2024), total income rose 11% year on year to S$16.8 billion on the back of a 5% year-on-year increase in net interest income.
The bank’s non-interest income also climbed 27% year on year to S$3.2 billion.
Net profit hit a record of S$8.8 billion for 9M 2024, up 12% year on year.
DBS also delivered an impressive return on equity of 18.8%.
The bank increased its quarterly dividend by 22.7% year on year to S$0.54 in tandem with the good results.
CEO Piyush Gupta offered a sanguine outlook for 2025.
Non-interest income should still grow by high-single-digits year on year while net interest income should remain at 2024 levels.
Pre-tax profit should also be around this year’s levels, but net profit will be below 2024’s levels because of a global minimum tax rate of 15%.
Singapore Technologies Engineering (SGX: S63)
Singapore Technologies Engineering, or STE, is a global technology and engineering firm that serves clients in the aerospace, smart city, defence, and public security sectors.
The blue-chip group provided a robust business update for 9M 2024.
Revenue for the period jumped 14% year on year to S$8.3 billion, led by broad-based year-on-year revenue gains across all its three divisions.
A total of S$8.3 billion in contracts were secured in 9M 2024, bringing STE’s order book to S$26.9 billion as of 30 September 2024.
Of this, S$2.6 billion is expected to be delivered for the rest of this year while the rest should be recognised in 2025.
CEO Vincent Chong has set a key target for STE to deliver revenue of over S$11 billion by 2026.
The group will hold an Investor Day meeting next year to communicate its targets and he hopes that investors will appreciate the engineering firm as both a growth and yield stock.
STE currently pays a quarterly dividend of S$0.04, bringing its annual dividend to S$0.16 per share.
Keppel DC REIT (SGX: AJBU)
Keppel DC REIT is a data centre REIT with a portfolio of 23 data centres across 10 countries.
The REIT’s assets under management (AUM) stood at S$2.3 billion as of 30 September 2024.
The data centre REIT has done well this year, maintaining a high occupancy rate of 97.6% as of the third quarter of 2024 (3Q 2024).
Its financial performance also remained robust despite a loss provision made for its Guangdong data centres.
For 3Q 2024, gross revenue rose 8.9% year on year to S$76.9 million while distribution per unit inched up 0.4% year on year to S$0.02501.
In late November, Keppel DC REIT announced a major acquisition of two data centres from its sponsor Keppel Ltd (SGX: BN4).
This purchase will not only be yield accretive but will also lower the REIT’s gearing to enable it to take on more debt.
Aggregate leverage will fall to just 33.3% post-acquisition, opening the REIT up to more of such acquisitions from its sponsor or through third parties.
Investors can also look forward to rental uplifts and capacity expansion from these two new data centres because of the tight demand-supply dynamic.
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Disclosure: Royston Yang owns shares of iFAST Corporation, DBS Group and Keppel DC REIT.
