Hot stock: Cooling measures, rate hikes weigh on CapitaLand's shares

Concerns over the impact of the Singapore government's cooling measures and potential interest rate hikes on the private residential market here weighed on CapitaLand's shares on Wednesday.

At 11:44am, CapitaLand was trading around S$3.16 a share, down 2 cent, or 0.6 per cent. More than 11 million shares were traded.

Early Wednesday, the property group unveiled a 5.8 per cent rise in its net profit to S$464 million for the second quarter ended June 30, 2015. Revenue increased by 17.8 per cent to over S$1 billion on higher contribution from development projects in China.

CapitaLand said it expected the impact of the Singapore government's cooling measures and concerns over interest rate hikes to continue to weigh on the private residential market. But noted that with a resilient economy and policies to support population growth, the demand for new homes remains positive over the long-term.

It added that the sites at Cairnhill Road and Victoria Park Villas would be launch-ready in early 2016 and that it continued to source for well-located sites to build up its pipeline in Singapore.

It also warned that the wave of new office completions from second half of 2016 onwards might affect rental and occupancy rate in the medium term. As at June 30, 2015, CapitaGreen's leasing commitment stood at 80.4 per cent.