The small city state of Singapore offers many investment opportunities. In recent years the country has positioned itself as a financial hub and has built a knowledge-based economy.

The following graphic shows the Top 15 Singapore Stocks by Market Capitalization traded on the Singapore Exchange as of November 30, 2009:

The folks at Seeking Alpha asked me to give them some thoughts on what 2010 might look like for investors. In all deference to that Chinese proverb, these have been interesting times and are likely to remain interesting a little while longer.

In a similar article about what 2009 might look like, I opined that we would be in for a massive rally. That article drew 100 comments, which is by far the most for any post or article I’ve ever written. The general tone of those comments was to call me an idiot for thinking a 30-35% rally could be in the offing. Part of the logic there was that often after big scary declines that threaten the future of civilization as we know it, there is an enormous rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average went up about 75% over one stretch in the early 1930s, so while I could have been totally wrong, of course, I was not calling for something without precedent.

The following is excerpted from a recent economic briefing note from Roman Scott, Economic Spokesman, British Chamber of Commerce Singapore:

The latest data on the Singapore economy is, in a word, dreadful. The closely watched figures for NODX (non-oil domestic exports) for December 2008 registered a fall of over 20%, its third monthly contraction in a row, and on a quarterly basis a decline of over 13%. Given our view that Singapore is the world's 'canary in the coalmine', trade and exports in the rest of the world will be following the same pattern very soon. Indeed, the latest export performance data from the G3 economies and from other leading exporters appear to confirm this. The worse readings are coming out of those countries that are heavily tied to the global electronics cycle such as Korea and Taiwan, a club that Singapore unfortunately remains a member of despite recent efforts to diversify its economy into greener pastures.