Singapore MAS to require investors to report short positions on SGX stocks

Unlike most analysts, Brian Tan, an economist at Nomura in Singapore,.doubts that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will tighten policy next year.

SINGAPORE: Singapore's central bank said on Monday it will require investors to report short positions and short sell orders in securities listed on the Singapore Exchange from Oct. 1 to improve transparency on such activities.

Under the new rules, investors with short positions above the threshold of the lower of 0.2 percent of total issued shares or S$2 million ($1.49 million) will have to report the positions to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

MAS said the rule will improve transparency on short selling activities in the market and enable investors to make more informed trading decisions.

MAS will publish aggregated short positions of each security on Wednesday of each week.

The rule was proposed initially in 2016 amid a growing number of public short-selling campaigns against listed companies in the region.

Short selling involves the sale of a security that the seller does not own, or has borrowed, believing that the security's price will decline so that it can be profitably bought back at a lower price. - Reuters