Singapore shares fall at Monday’s open; STI down 0.5%

SINGAPORE stocks started the week on a softer note, as investors resume trading on Monday (Apr 18) following the Good Friday weekend.

On Monday, Enterprise Singapore noted that key Singapore exports rose for the 16th straight month in March, as gold shipments lift trade. Non-oil domestic exports (NODX) growth eased to 7.7 per cent year on year, from 9.4 per cent in the month before.

Singapore’s Straits Times Index headed down 0.5 per cent or 16.42 points to 3,319.43 as at 9.03am. Losers outnumbered gains 74 to 65, after 111.1 million securities worth S$68.8 million changed hands.

The most active counter by volume was Sembcorp Marine , which rose 2.5 per cent or S$0.003 to S$0.123, with 31.2 million shares changing hands.

Other heavily traded securities included Addvalue Technologies , which was up 5.9 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.018, with 7.7 million shares traded, and Rex International , which gained 4.3 per cent or S$0.015 to S$0.365, with 3.4 million shares traded.

Rex announced on Monday that its subsidiary Lime Petroleum will be acquiring 40 per cent of 2 licences to explore oil and gas fields in the Norwegian North Sea from exploration company MOL Norge.

Banking stocks declined during early morning trade. DBS lost 1.4 per cent or S$0.46 to S$33.02, UOB dropped 1.7 per cent or S$0.51 to S$30.25, while OCBC slid 0.3 per cent or S$0.04 to S$11.99.

Other active index counters included Singtel , which was down S$0.38 or S$0.01 to S$2.60, and Singapore Airlines , which fell 0.7 per cent or S$0.04 to S$5.42.

In the US, stocks finished lower on Thursday (Apr 14) as investors worried about the potential for aggressive US policy tightening as other central banks around the world moved to reduce support.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 0.3 per cent to 34,451.23, the S&P 500 lost 1.2 per cent to 4,392.59, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 2.1 per cent to 13,351.08.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened lower on Monday. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 1.3 per cent to 26,755.52 in early trade, while the broader Topix index slipped 0.9 per cent to 1,879.85.