Singapore: Stocks weaken in line with China, HK selloff

The Singapore market's recent dismal form continued on Thursday with the Straits Times Index spending the entire session in the red before closing with a nett loss of 7.17 points at 3,417.77, most probably because of a large selloff in China and Hong Kong. Turnover, which spiked up to S$1.3 billion during Wednesday's weakness, amounted to 1.9 billion units worth S$1.1 billion.

The loss cut the STI's gain for 2015 to 52 points or 1.5 per cent. Banks were among the more notable index losers as all three ended weaker. Brokers said banks had recently outperformed because of expectations that they would benefit from rising interest rates; however, a recent sharp drop in Sibor (Singapore interbank offer rate) has tempered those expectations, bringing pressure to bear on the three counters.

Business done in the 30 STI components amounted to 216 million units worth S$661 million which in dollar terms was 60 per cent of overall volume.

In the second line, shares of China Environmental Resources rocketed up S$0.049 or 96 per cent to S$0.10 on volume of 614,800 shares done. The company has a secondary listing here and a primary listing in Hong Kong, where its shares jumped HK$0.07 or 11 per cent to HK$0.71 on volume of 93.2 million done. The company released a statement to the Hong Kong Exchange that it did not know of reasons why its shares were in play.