Singapore shares open lower on Wednesday

SINGAPORE share prices opened 0.01 per cent lower on Wednesday with the Straits Times Index down 0.18 point to 3,130.26 at 9.05am.

This followed in the footsteps of Tokyo shares, which opened slightly lower. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.14 per cent, or 26.88 points, to 19,317.27 in the first few minutes of trading. The Topix index of all first-section issues was down 0.11 per cent, or 1.78 points, at 1,553.26.

On Wall Street, US stocks fell for the second session in a row, reflecting cautiousness ahead of key US jobs data to be released later in the week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.1 per cent to 20,924.76. The broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.3 per cent to 2,368.39 ,while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 0.3 per cent at 5,833.93.

On the Singapore bourse, the highest value traded stocks were shipbuilder Yangzijiang (down two cents to S$1.16), Wilmar International (flat at S$3.61), and Noble Group (up one cent to S$0.23) as at 9.05am.

Overall, 135.7 million shares worth S$66.7 million changed hands. Gainers outnumbered losers 105 to 54 as at 9.06am.