Singapore traders to get their first lunch break in six years

Imagine not having a lunch break for six and a half  years. For stock brokers in Singapore, that’s about to end.

Starting this week, some 3,000 of them will be able to step out for an hour from noon for a midday trading intermission, taking a break at the same time as their counterparts in Hong Kong, though for a shorter period than the 90 minutes enjoyed by traders in Malaysia, the Philippines and mainland China. The region’s longest lunch is the two-hour pause in Thailand.

The city’s benchmark Straits Times Index is on pace for its best showing in five years. The gauge is up 19 percent this year, the biggest annual gain since 2012 — though it lags behind the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index’s 33 percent increase. About S$1.2 billion ($880 million) worth of shares had changed hands by the close, 3.2 percent more than this year’s daily average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“It’s a relief that we managed to get our lunch breaks back,” said Ernest Lim, a 36-year-old commission-based equity trader at CIMB Securities Singapore Pte.  “In our high-pressure jobs, it does us — especially the more active and hardworking remisiers — and our clients good if we can eat in peace and reinvigorate ourselves.”