How To Handle Your Unit Shares

Do you have unit shares in your portfolio? Unit shares are also called odd lots, which refers to quantities that are less than 100 shares in the Singapore market.

Scenarios that will land you with some unit shares in your portfolio:

Bonus share issues
Share consolidations
Bonus offers
Rights issues
Dividends received in scrips* instead of cash

*If you are keen to find out how to choose between scrip or cash dividends, please check my post on Scrip Vs Cash Dividend: How to Analyse?

What can we do with unit shares?

Besides keeping the unit shares, you can also trade unit shares in the unit share market:

Buy more unit shares to make up 100 shares

Many investors like to do this to make their portfolio look "in-place". However, this option incurs more brokerage. A better option is to sell, which is explained below.

Sell your unit shares along with your board lot (100 shares)

Trades in the ready market (ie. trading in 100 shares) and the unit share market are automatically amalgamated into one contract for the same counter, same trading day, same trade action (eg. all buy trades), same settlement currency and same payment mode.
Hence, say you have 850 shares of Capitaland. You sold 800 shares in the ready market and 50 shares in the unit share market, these two trades would have amalgamated into one contract and hence, considered a one-time charge.
Alternatively, if you had bought 50 shares of Capitaland to make up 900 shares, then you would incur a second charge when selling the 900 shares. Hence, it is always better to sell your unit shares along with your board lot, rather than buying.

How to sell my unit shares?

Let's take an example of 850 shares of Capitaland. Follow the steps below:

Step 1: First sell 800 shares of Capitaland in the ready market, just like selling any other shares.
Step 2: Sell 50 shares of Capitaland in the unit share market.

*General tip: As the board lots makes the bulk of your order, it is better to first have the order for 800 shares done at the price that you wish, then proceed to the unit share market to sell the balance Capitaland shares at the buyer's price. Otherwise, you may come to a scenario where your unit shares are done, while the rest of the order is not done, hence incurring more than one-time charge.

Online Trading Platform

Step 2a: On the Market Prices Page, select "SGX UnitShare"

Step 2b: Type the share that you wish to search for

Step 2c: Check that the buy and sell volume will reflect as less than 100. For the Ready Market, the buy & sell volume will be reflected in denominations of 100s.