Singapore stocks: STI resumes Thursday afternoon trading at 3,171.69, down 0.4% on day

SINGAPORE stocks resumed trading in negative territory on Thursday, with the Straits Times Index slipping 0.4 per cent, or 13 points to 3,171.69 as at 1pm. 

Decliners outnumbered advancers 174 to 149, after about 579.6 million securities worth S$605.6 million changed hands. 

Among the most heavily traded by volume, YZJ Shipbuilding plummeted 20 per cent, or 26 Singapore cents to S$1.04, with some 83.7 million shares traded as at 11.30am. The company requested an immediate trading halt on Thursday morning pending the release of an announcement, shortly after the Singapore Exchange flagged "unusual price movements" in the company's shares.

Following the midday break, banking stocks traded mixed - DBS lost 0.6 per cent, or 14 Singapore cents to S$24.94, UOB added 0.9 per cent, or 22 cents to S$26.15 on a cum-dividend basis, and OCBC gained 0.4 per cent, or four cents to S$11.11 on a cum-dividend basis. 

Other active stocks included Wilmar International, which was up 1.3 per cent, or five cents to S$4.03, Venture which gained 1.9 per cent, or 27 cents to S$14.79, and ST Engineering which added 2.2 per cent, or nine cents to S$4.21. 

Meanwhile, Hongkong Land fell 1.5 per cent, or eight cents to S$5.44 on a cum-dividend basis, and Singtel declined 1.2 per cent, or four cents to S$3.25. This comes after the telco on Thursday posted a 35 per cent dive in its first-quarter net profit to S$541.1 million - hitting a 16-year low for the company. 

Elsewhere, Asian equities edged higher on Thursday on bargain hunting by investors. Tokyo's Nikkei gained 0.6 per cent, after shedding more than 1,000 points in a four-day losing streak.

Similarly, Shanghai climbed 0.7 per cent, snapping its losing streak as the yuan found its footing, and Hong Kong rose 0.4 per cent. South Korean stocks added 0.9 per cent, and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index tacked on 0.2 per cent. 

US stock index futures rose for a third day, after China's central bank set its daily fixing stronger than expected.

S&P 500 Index futures contracts expiring in September gained 0.5 per cent at 1.17pm, rebounding from an earlier 0.4 per cent loss, after the People's Bank of China set its daily reference rate at 7.0039 per US dollar, Bloomberg data shows.  

Futures on the Nasdaq 100 also rebounded by as much as 0.7 per cent, while futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average bounced back by as much as 0.5 per cent.