Dear Editor,

MAS & SGX: Current rules provide transparency on short selling activities

We refer to Mr Tan Song Huat’s letter calling for short sell trades of any size on SGX to be published within 24 hours. (“Shorting on the SGX: Have full transparency on such trades, big or small”, 3 April 2020).

We would like to clarify that SGX and MAS already publish information on short sell trades and outstanding short positions respectively.  

MAS and SGX rules require all persons making short sell orders to identify the order as such. The requirement applies regardless of order size and there is no exemption for small orders. SGX publishes data on all submitted and matched short sell orders (i.e. short sell trades) on its website (www.sgx.com/research-education/securities ) by the next working day.

The “Percentage Threshold Exemption” that Mr Tan mentioned refers to an additional reporting requirement that is on top of the short sell order reporting described above. Persons whose aggregate short positions in a counter exceed either 0.2% of total issued shares or S$2 million in aggregate value are required to report these outstanding positions, on a weekly basis. This includes all short positions held through nominee accounts.

Persons whose aggregate short positions are below these thresholds need not report their aggregate short positions, but must still identify short sell orders as and when these orders are made. Having a threshold for aggregate short position reporting avoids imposing additional reporting burden on persons with only small aggregated short positions, and is consistent with the rules in many developed markets.

Weekly aggregated short position reports are published by MAS and can be found at: https://eservices.mas.gov.sg/sprs/Public/Publication/ViewAggregatedReports.aspx
 
Jerome Lee
Director (Corporate Communications)
Monetary Authority of Singapore

Chin May Nah
Head of Media Communications
Singapore Exchange