Most investors treat share prices like gospel. Down 15% in three months? Panic. Up 20% in a week? Euphoria. But here's what the market won't tell you: the price you see flashing across your screen is determined by less than 1% of the company's shares actually changing hands.1
Take DBS Group Holdings—one of Singapore's most widely held stocks and a cornerstone holding in the banking sector, itself among the most popular investment sectors. On any given day, roughly 4.8 million shares trade. Sounds substantial until you realize DBS has 2.84 billion shares outstanding. That's 0.17% of the company trading hands daily. The remaining 99.83%? Sitting quietly in portfolios, untouched by the day's drama.
Yet that 0.17% sets the "market price" for the entire enterprise.
Think about what this means. When DBS shares drop 3% on a Tuesday afternoon, it's not because 2.84 billion shares suddenly became less valuable. It's because a tiny fraction of shareholders—perhaps spooked by a headline, rebalancing portfolios, or simply needing liquidity—decided to sell at a lower price than Monday's close.
This is the fundamental disconnect investors must grasp: share prices reflect marginal trading activity, not intrinsic business worth.
Imagine you own a private business outright. You've built it over decades. It generates consistent cash flow, has loyal customers, employs skilled people, and operates with sound fundamentals. One day, someone offers you 15% less than what you paid for it three months ago.
Would you sell? Would you even consider it?
Of course not. You'd evaluate the business itself. Are customers still paying? Are margins intact? Is the competitive position secure? Is management executing the strategy?
If the answers are yes, you'd dismiss the offer as noise. Yet when that same business is publicly listed, retail investors watch a 15% price decline and assume something catastrophic must have occurred.
Nothing catastrophic occurred. A small percentage of shares traded at lower prices. That's all.
Share prices respond to countless factors divorced from business fundamentals:
Institutional rebalancing. A pension fund shifts asset allocation. Millions of shares hit the market. Price falls. The business is unchanged.
Liquidity needs. A major shareholder requires cash for unrelated reasons. Shares get dumped. The business carries on.
Day traders, hedge funds, and algorithmic trading. Short-term speculators—often representing 10% or more of daily volume—react to technical signals, momentum strategies, and minute-by-minute price movements, not business fundamentals.
For DBS specifically, Temasek Holdings controls 29% of shares—effectively locked up capital that rarely trades. Large institutional holders like Vanguard and BlackRock might trade only at quarterly rebalancing. The "float" that actually determines daily prices is far smaller than the headline suggests.
You're watching price discovery happen among the most impatient, most leveraged, or most liquidity-constrained participants. That's who sets the ticker.
"In the short run, the market is a voting machine—but in the long run, it is a weighing machine."
-Benjamin Graham
The voting machine counts hands raised by traders operating on sentiment and quarterly thinking. The weighing machine measures actual business results: earnings, cash generation, return on equity, competitive positioning. Over time, these converge.
DBS has delivered record profits, expanded its wealth management franchise across Asia, maintained best-in-class digital banking capabilities, and generated consistent double-digit returns on equity. When share prices temporarily diverge from these fundamentals—whether too low or too high—the weighing machine eventually corrects the voting machine.
This is why business owners sleep better than traders. Owners know the business will compound value if fundamentals remain sound, regardless of daily price fluctuations.
The practical takeaway isn't to ignore share prices entirely. Price matters when you're buying or selling. But price should never be confused with value, and short-term price movements should never be mistaken for business health.
When DBS shares fall 15% over several months, the first question isn't "What's wrong with the stock?" It's "What's changed in the business?"
Has loan quality deteriorated? No.
Have margins compressed beyond industry trends? No.
Is management executing poorly? No.
Has competitive positioning eroded? No.
Every time you check a stock price, remember: you're watching a tiny percentage of shares trade. That percentage might be informed. It might be panicked. It might be algorithmic. But it's always tiny.
The business behind those shares operates on a different timescale. Revenue doesn't pivot on hourly charts. Competitive advantages aren't built or destroyed in trading sessions. Management quality doesn't fluctuate with market sentiment.
When DBS shares fall 15% over several months, the first question isn't "What's wrong with the stock?" It's "What's changed in the business?" If fundamentals remain intact—or have improved—then the price decline represents opportunity, not risk.
The ticker isn't the business. Never has been, never will be.
Consider the power of compounding: $1,000 invested in DBS shares ten years ago would be worth approximately $4,300 today with dividends reinvested—a 330% return. Extend that to fifteen years, and that same $1,000 becomes $7,600—a 660% return. Both periods included the Global Financial Crisis recovery, multiple bear markets, COVID-19 panic, interest rate scares, and endless daily volatility.
The business compounded. The share price followed. Everything else was noise.
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