For a first time investor, it is useful to consider your investment objective before deciding on what information is needed to analyse the companies.

Investing for income
If you are looking to generate income through investing, you may choose to focus on the dividends which are paid out by the company. This is typically measured by the dividends paid per share, or dividend yield. As a benchmark, the STI constituents had an average dividend yield of 3.4% as of the end of April 2017.

Current examples of dividend shares in Singapore are telecommunication shares and Real Estate Investment Trusts. As detailed in the table below the three shares of the STI with the highest dividends as of 15 May 2017 were Hutchison Port Holdings, Starhub and Ascendas REIT.

STI constituent	SGX Code	Market Cap S$m	GICS Sector Name	Total Return YTD (%)	Dividend Yield (%)
Hutchison Port Holdings Trust	NS8U	4,905	Industrials	-5.8	10.7
StarHub	CC3	4,737	Telecommunication Services	0.7	6.9
Ascendas REIT	A17U	7,469	Real Estate	17.8	6.4
CapitaLand Commercial Trust	C61U	4,826	Real Estate	13.2	5.8
CapitaLand Mall Trust	C38U	6,913	Real Estate	6.4	5.6
Singapore Telecommunications	Z74	60,580	Telecommunication Services	1.6	4.7
Singapore Airlines	C6L	12,760	Industrials	11.7	4.1
Singapore Press Holdings	T39	5,405	Consumer Discretionary	-2.5	4.1
Singapore Technologies Engineering	S63	11,688	Industrials	19.2	4
Singapore Exchange	S68	7,865	Financials	4	3.8

Top 10 dividend yielding shares for the past 12 months
SGX, Bloomberg & SGX StockFacts (data as of 12 May 2017)

Investing for capital appreciation
Alternatively, you may look at companies which have exhibited higher than average growth over the years, and focus on how the company has grown in terms of their total return. Higher total return typically results from higher capital appreciation and higher dividend yield.

In the Singapore context, as detailed in the table below, the three shares of the STI with the highest total return in 5 years as of 12 May 2017 were Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings, Global Logistic Properties and City Developments.

Name	SGX Code	Market Cap S$m	Total Return YTD (%)	Dvd Ind Yld (%))	GICS Sector Name
Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings	BS6	4,733	51.5	3.2	Industrials
Global Logistic Properties	MC0	13,499	30.9	2.1	Real Estate
City Developments	C09	9,620	29.2	0.8	Real Estate
CapitaLand	C31	15,332	22.8	2.8	Real Estate
DBS Group Holdings	D05	52,582	21	2.9	Financials
Genting Singapore	G13	12,987	21	2.8	Consumer Discretionary
UOL Group	U14	5,691	20.5	2.1	Real Estate
Singapore Technologies Engineering	S63	11,688	19.2	4	Industrials
Hongkong Land Holdings	H78	25,206	18.9	2.5	Real Estate
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp	O39	44,125	18.3	3.4	Financials

Top 10 total return YTD shares
Source: SGX, Bloomberg & SGX StockFacts (data as of 12 May 2017)