• 3Q18 Net Interest Income and PATMI were in line with our estimates.
• NIM exceeded expectations by expanding 6 bps YoY and 5 bps QoQ.
• Loans growth remained strong at 10% YoY, driven by Building & Construction (+46% YoY) and Greater China loans (+15% YoY).
• NPL remained stable at 1.4% (3Q17: 1.3%) while credit costs normalised to 14 bps (2Q18: 5 bps).
• Maintain BUY with a lower target price of S$13.70 (previous TP S$14.90) as we modelled for a more volatile and lower growth environment.

• Domestic loans rose 4.5% YoY, driven by business loans growth of 5.3% YoY. 
• Domestic deposits rose 2.4% YoY, fuelled by fixed deposit expansion of 6.8% YoY.
• Hong Kong’s loans growth continues to decelerate to 7.2% YoY in September, the slowest in almost two years.
• 3-month SIBOR maintained last month’s decade-high of 1.64%.
• Maintain BUY for the Singapore Banking Sector.

• President Donald Trump is lobbying for middle-income tax reduction as his Midterm Elections Campaign
• Tax reduction will potentially increase purchasing power of middle-income families
• Consumer Discretionary Sector is expected to benefit from such a move

Japanese stocks are being influenced by ① US stocks and ② Chinese stocks. The main driver for ① is the 3Q (July-Sept) financial results closing and that for ② is the economic trend.  As seen in the results of Caterpillar (CAT), concerns have arisen about cost increase possibly due to additional tariffs, and lower than expected sales of Amazon.com (AMZN), a growth stock with ensuing expectations for high growth, have caused investors to react strongly to such developments resulting in...
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