Singapore: Shares open lower, Noble tumbles on resumption

SINGAPORE shares opened lower on Friday with the Straits Times Index down 4.10 points to 3,422.08 at 9.02am, after falling oil prices hit oil-linked equities on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500.

In all, some 127.2 million shares worth S$219.9 million changed hands, with gainers outnumbering losers 74 to 69.

The exchange's most active stocks were Noble Group and Golden Agri-Resources.

On resuming trading today, Noble lost six cents or 5.7 per cent to S$1. Some 22.9 million shares changed hands. It had reported a net Q4 loss of US$240 million and come under a second attack by anonymous short-seller Iceberg Research on Thursday, which led it to halt trading in its shares.

Golden Agri on Friday reported a net loss of US$21.9 million for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2014, compared to a net profit of US$123 million a year ago. It also proposed a lower dividend of 0.585 Singapore cents per share for FY14, compared to a payout of 1.10 Singapore cents in FY13. Its shares fell half a cent (or 1.2 per cent) to S$0.405, with 12.6 million shares traded.