Good evening.

Welcome to CRAAKED #003.

Here are the Singapore money stories worth your attention this week.

UOL, CapitaLand Development and Singapore Land submitted the winning bid for a New Upper Changi Road site, which can hold around 1,010 homes.
At S$1,537 psf ppr, it was 13.8% above the next offer. The Business Times reports it also sets a new benchmark for pure residential land in the Outside Central Region.

Here’s the number that caught our eye: Allgreen paid S$1,330 psf ppr for nearby Bedok Rise in November 2025.

Less than a year later, this bid is 15.6% higher.

That doesn’t tell us what the eventual condos will sell for.

But it tells us what some of Singapore’s biggest developers are prepared to pay for suburban land before a single apartment is built.

Singapore Depository Receipts let you get exposure to selected overseas-listed companies through SGX, in Singapore dollars and during SGX trading hours.

DollarsAndSense explains how SDRs work, including an important catch: trading in SGD doesn’t remove the underlying foreign-exchange risk.

They also compare when SDRs may be useful and when investing directly overseas may be more appropriate.

Listen: US SDRs Explained: Investing Beyond Singapore Through SGX
Duration: 27:35

There’s a date parents with two or more children may want to know: 30 September 2027.

For eligible children born before 1 April 2027, existing CDA co-matching caps remain until then. From 1 October 2027, they become S$5,000. LifeSG explains the transition here.

Biggest difference? The current cap for a fifth or subsequent child is S$15,000.

What matters, though, is how much of that Government co-matching entitlement has already been used.

An SGX Market Update published on I3investor claims that more than 70 Singapore-listed companies spent S$2.09 billion on share buybacks in the first eight months of 2026.

That’s 33% more than during the same period last year. Singtel alone accounted for almost S$949 million.

Buybacks can lift earnings per share simply because there are fewer shares to divide the profits among.

They don’t make the underlying business more profitable.

So a rising EPS after a buyback doesn’t necessarily mean the business itself is earning more.

ETFS OR SINGAPORE STOCKS
If you had S$20,000 to invest, would you spread it across an ETF or pick individual Singapore stocks?

The Smart Investor compares the two: ETFs offer instant diversification and require less maintenance, while individual stocks give investors more control but concentrate more risk.

The useful bit? It isn't really about the S$20,000. It's about understanding what you're giving up when you choose diversification over control, or vice versa.

Money decisions aren’t always about the maths.

Financial Horse explores how beliefs and experiences can influence decisions about housing, CPF, insurance and spending.

For example, keeping a large amount of cash because investing feels unsafe is different from deciding, after looking at your needs, that you actually need that much cash.

The financial position may look identical. The reason behind it isn’t.

That’s the useful idea: separate the financial fact from the emotion attached to it.

Government-backed. Your money isn’t locked away for 10 years. Returns step up over time. And you can start with S$500.

Singapore Savings Bonds can sound almost too good to be true.

Dr Wealth’s updated SSB guide explains how they work, from interest and redemptions to buying with cash or SRS.

So is it the perfect financial product?

Only if you judge it by what it was designed to do. SSBs trade potentially higher returns for government backing, flexibility and relatively simple mechanics.

Three issues in.

What should we CRAAK next?

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