Singapore shares buck regional trend, STI up 0.17%

SINGAPORE shares advanced on Monday, tracking gains on Wall Street as concerns about the Federal Reserve dialling back on support for the economy eased.

The US$1.2 trillion infrastructure spending deal reached had given US indexes a boost to reach fresh records.

The Singapore Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.17 per cent or 5.28 points to 3,126.88.

Stocks elsewhere in Asia, however, were muted with key benchmarks in the region ending lower. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 0.07 per cent, Japan's Nikkei 225 dipped 0.06 per cent; Seoul's Kospi fell 0.03 per cent; the Jakarta Composite Index shed 1.38 per cent while the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index ended 0.96 per cent lower.

Said Oanda senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley: "The subdued start to the Asian week is likely to continue until the middle of the week when the data calendar accelerates. The evolving virus situation across Asia-Pacific will start to weigh on any gains if it deteriorates increasingly."

On the local bourse, losers outnumbered gainers 243 to 225, after 1.57 billion securities worth S$1 billion changed hands.

Among the STI constituents, BN4 was the was the best-performing stock; its shares ended 3.7 per cent or S$0.20 higher at S$5.60.

C31 also found itself among top-performing stocks. Its shares were up 1.6 per cent or S$0.06 to end at S$3.74. It had announced that it plans to divest partial stakes in a group of companies that own six of its Raffles City developments in China for 46.7 billion yuan (S$9.67 billion), which will generate over S$2 billion in proceeds.

At the bottom of the table was C6L which fell 2.6 per cent or S$0.13 to S$4.86.

The most heavily traded counter on the blue-chip index was G13 . It was down 1.2 per cent or one Singapore cent to 85.5 cents after over 42.4 million shares changed hands.

Outside the STI, S51 (Sembmarine) was the most actively traded counter by volume, with over 502 million shares traded. Its shares fell 4.3 per cent or 0.6 Singapore cent to 13.3 cents. Sembmarine and Keppel had on Thursday announced they were in talks to merge their offshore and marine operations.