Singapore shares decline at open, tracking Wall Street retreat; STI down 0.3%

SINGAPORE shares slipped at Tuesday’s (Aug 2) open after the US and Europe markets closed slightly lower overnight.

Singapore’s Straits Times Index headed down 0.3 per cent or 10.97 points to 3,227.78 as at 9.05am. Losers outnumbered gainers 85 to 46, after 97 million securities worth S$51.9 million changed hands.

The most active counter by volume was Jiutian Chemical , which rose 3.2 per cent or S$0.003 to S$0.096, with 35.1 million shares traded.

This came after the Catalist-listed chemical company announced on Monday that it expects a "significant increase" in consolidated net profit for the half year ended Jun 30, due to a rise in the average selling price of its main products.

Other heavily traded securities included Sembcorp Marine , which dropped 0.9 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.109, with 7.3 million shares traded, as well as Hutchison Port Holdings Trust which slid 6.3 per cent or S$0.015 to S$0.225, with 3.4 million shares traded.

Banking stocks were in the red during the early morning trade. DBS lost 0.4 per cent or S$0.11 to S$31.62, UOB was down 0.3 per cent or S$0.07 to S$27.82, while OCBC declined 0.1 per cent or S$0.01 to S$11.73.

Other active index counters included Ascendas Real Estate Investment Trust , which shed 0.7 per cent or S$0.02 to S$2.95, and Singtel , which held steady at S$2.64.

On Monday, Bharti Airtel, a joint-venture company of Singtel, announced that it obtained 5G spectrum in India for a sum of 430.8 billion rupees (S$7.5 billion) and a duration of 20 years. With this, Airtel said it would not need to spend any material sum on the spectrum for many years to come.

In the US, stocks ended modestly lower on Monday following a choppy session, where petroleum-linked shares retreated.

SEE ALSO

Stocks to watch: Singtel, Keppel O&M, Great Eastern, Jiutian Chemical, Centurion

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.1 per cent lower at 32,798.40. Meanwhile, the broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.3 per cent to 4,118.63, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index slid 0.2 per cent to 12,368.98.

European shares pulled back slightly on Monday, dragged by energy stocks and fears of a global economic slowdown, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 down 0.1 per cent.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks also opened lower on Tuesday. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.6 per cent to 27,818.95 during the early trade, while the broader Topix index lost 0.6 per cent to 1,947.56.