Property stock rally could be short-lived

SINGAPORE'S largest property counters staged a rebound on Thursday, buoyed by a rising tide in the equities market spurred by an overnight rally on Wall Street and news of fresh stimulus measures by China. The recent China turmoil was also said to have weakened the case for a Fed rate hike in September.

But Thursday's rally could prove to be short-lived given the mixed bag of earnings from developers and sluggish residential transactions here still casting a pall over their earnings prospects.

"The property market in Singapore will continue to be challenging till 2016," said Voyage research chief executive Roger Tan. "I don't think companies in the property sector is out of the woods yet and stock prices could still soften."