You can now take a bite of the stock market as SGX shrinks board lot sizes

My first foray into stock investing was nearly derailed at the first hurdle. Hear me out.

I had just passed probation at my first real job and was beginning to get some real money.

As my parents had taught me, I started to put away some money for the future, but I had no real idea what to do with it.

So when I started looking around, Mum suggested just tucking the money away with some shares in a couple of Singapore’s larger local companies so the money wasn’t just sitting idle.

I thought that was great because I had read about how investing was about letting your money work hard for you, and I thought why not get started?

​

After some hemming and hawing, I finally went to try to get the ball rolling, but baulked at the price, certainly more in a single moment than I could afford, and wouldn’t.

​

Mum offered to split the “lot” with me, and that’s how I learnt about what board lots were, and how they affected the number of companies I could afford to buy due to the larger upfront amount. I imagine this would be the same for other young investors..

​

The good news is that from Oct. 5, 2026, SGX is shrinking the minimum number of shares that can be transacted, making it much easier and far more affordable for us retail investors to trade Singapore’s most popular stocks.

But before we get into that…

… what’s a board lot?

I think most of us instinctively know what a share is: a fraction of a company’s ownership that investors can purchase, and share in its profits.

​

Shares allow the ownership of a company to be split between thousands of shareholders.

​

In order to make trading of shares simpler and more efficient, stock exchanges regularly put them in groups with nice round numbers, something like standard pack sizes otherwise known as “round lots.”

This means everyone trades in fixed bundle sizes so people don’t buy awkward amounts like three or 82 shares, which really helps keep the market neat and organised.

It’s like buying eggs – you usually cannot buy just one single egg but you have to buy them in a carton of 10 or 12 for instance.

​

Stock exchanges set this rule and this varies across exchanges around the world, so the local standard was referred to as a “board lot.”

​

The Singapore stock exchange is no different in this regard, often operating on board lots of 100 shares.

Take local banks like DBS, UOB or OCBC for instance. Prior to the change, buying a single board lot of 100 shares in DBS (trading around S$77) meant you had to drop S$7,700 in one go.

And since the median monthly income in Singapore for 2025 was S$5,775, the average salaryman wouldn’t even be able to meet the minimum purchase of the DBS stock even if he put his whole month’s salary into the purchase!

A lot of lots

​These lots represent the smallest number of shares that can be traded in a single transaction.

And so whether you’re a young whippersnapper dipping your toes into investing, and trying to purchase shares in companies you’re familiar with, or a regular investor making tweaks to your portfolio, this minimum investing amount can be a daunting proposition.

Getting into investing when I did in the early 2010s, board lots back then were actually set at 1,000 shares, rather than the 100 they are now.

​

If they remained that size till now, trying to invest in shares like DBS would require at least S$77,000!

​

Even today, you’re looking at an outlay of around S$7,700, for one stock alone, and then after that, all your wealth is tied up in one stock, rather than in a healthy, diversified portfolio.

Now, I can get started at just S$770; it's cheaper to get started investing than buying a new iPhone!

Now you can invest too

There are still ways of investing smaller sums, such as using certain brokerages that offer fractional shares or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), but the fact of the matter is there are catches to those methods.

​

Sometimes you really just want to invest in one or two companies of your choice, and it’s a bummer to have to go with some fund that may not be what I was really looking for.

And fractional shares… if you think odd number of shares are messy, fractional shares are way messier for everyone.

​

But SGX has retail investors in mind, with a plan to make it easier to participate in Singapore’s stock market by reducing the board lot size of the first batch of 11 of the exchange's highest priced and most heavily traded shares from Oct. 5, 2026 onwards.

According to SGX, these 11 stocks account for 35 per cent of trading activity for the first six months of 2026.

​

The revision from lots of 100 to 10 is expected to lower barriers to market participation and improve affordability for people like you and me.

It’s also important to note that should the price of a stock fall back below the S$10 or S$100 threshold, their board lot size reductions will remain unchanged.

Lots of reduction

More stocks are due to be added to the list of reduced lot sizes as they become eligible, so you can be sure SGX won’t be stopping with these 11.

Every calendar quarter, SGX will conduct a review to see if there are other stocks that qualify for a reduced board lot size, starting from January 2027.

​

SGX will take into consideration stocks’ daily closing prices from July 2026 to December 2026 for that January review.

​

Changes will be announced within the first five trading days at the end of each calendar quarter, and implemented within the first five trading days of the second month after the quarter.

​

For shares that are priced between S$10 and S$100, board lots will be reduced from 100 units to 10.

​

For shares that are priced above S$100, board lot reductions will be reduced to one unit.

The 11 stocks picked are currently trading at over S$10, making the current lots relatively sizable.

​​

So if you’ve been looking for a sign to start your investing journey, there’s no easier time than now!