Singapore shares fall at open after Wall Street ends mixed; STI down 0.3%

SINGAPORE stocks opened weaker on Wednesday (Sep 28) after a mixed performance on Wall Street and with Singapore banks starting the morning in the red.

Singapore’s Straits Times Index headed down 0.3 per cent or 10.44 points to 3,155.06 as at 9.03 am. Gainers and losers were almost evenly matched at 52 to 51, after 44.3 million securities worth S$75.3 million changed hands.

One of the most active counters by volume was Keppel Corporation , which shed 0.7 per cent or S$0.05 to S$6.92, with 1.7 million shares traded.

Other heavily traded securities included Sembcorp Marine , which held steady at S$0.106 with 1.5 million shares traded, and Yangzijiang Shipbuilding , which fell 0.9 per cent or S$0.01 to S$1.07, with 1.3 million shares traded.

Banking stocks declined in early morning trade. DBS lost 0.9 per cent or S$0.28 to S$32.74, UOB dropped 0.6 per cent or S$0.15 to S$26.42, while OCBC decreased 0.3 per cent or S$0.03 to S$11.84.

Other active index counters included CapitaLand Investment , which gained 0.3 per cent or S$0.01 to S$3.53, and Singtel , which remained unchanged at S$2.63.

Wall Street stocks finished mixed on Tuesday after 5 straight days of decline, with the S&P 500 notching a new low for the year.

The S&P 500 shed 0.2 per cent to 3,647.29, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.4 per cent lower at 29,134.99. However, the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.3 per cent to 10,829.50.

European shares continued to trade in negative territory on Tuesday amid mounting fears of a recession and aggressive policy tightening by central banks.

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London stocks slipped on worries over a new economic plan, while Germany’s DAX dropped 0.7 per cent to November 2020 lows. Meanwhile, Italy’s MIB index slipped 1.2 per cent, erasing all of Monday’s election relief gains.

The continent-wide Stoxx 600 index inched down 0.1 per cent after a volatile session which saw it rise as much as 1.3 per cent.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened lower on Wednesday. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.3 per cent to 26,485.89 in early trade, while the broader Topix index fell 0.4 per cent to 1,865.32.