Yield plays as investing idea

SINGAPORE (Oct 7): This has been a challenging year for the global stock market, with the slowdown in China, the Brexit turmoil and the tepid US recovery looking to be derailed by the upcoming presidential elections.

In this pessimistic outlook, the Straits Times Index has dipped 0.03% this year although dividends boosted the index to a positive 3.4%. The Singapore market boasts the best dividend yield in Southeast Asia with 3.8%, with Thailand and Malaysia in second and third place respectively.

This bias towards dividend payers has pushed the shares of many of the best counters up substantially this year REITs and major dividend payers like Singtel and ST Engineering has seen their share price surge with investor demand, but are there other stocks that might be good buys?

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