A year where small-cap risk paid off

IN A bull market, everyone is a genius. Nowhere is this truer than in the Singapore small-cap space, on which The Business Times has published a number of columns - from the serious to the frivolous.

Today, we evaluate the results of a couple of longer-term experiments. Of course, we came out as geniuses.

A year ago, we highlighted 10 stocks with high net cash to market capitalisation ratios ("Cash-rich firms offer investors options", Dec 14, 2016). These companies were also trading at a discount to their book values, their price-to-earnings ratios were under 10 times, and they were reasonably profitable with historical returns on equity of at least 10 per cent.