FEARS over what the next act of the unfolding Greek drama could bring pulled local shares down on Tuesday mid-afternoon as European markets awoke to the prospect of Athens running out of money. A Wall Street slump and global bond rout probably didn't help sentiment much either.

Though the Singapore market managed to open unchanged on Tuesday morning, it lost steam throughout the day to end 0.8 per cent or 28.47 points lower at 3,442.33, erasing the bulk of Monday's gains. Most of the decline was due to a sharp drop of nearly 20 points that occurred around 3.15pm, roughly coinciding with a selldown in European stocks.

Still, turnover was better than Monday's relatively low turnover, with about 1.34 billion shares worth S$1.15 billion in total changing hands, which worked out to an average unit price of S$0.86 per share. The broad market also mirrored the benchmark index's decline - losers outnumbered gainers 284 to 154.