Singapore shares fall at Tuesday's open tracking Wall Street retreat; STI down 0.37%

SINGAPORE stocks opened weaker on Tuesday following overnight losses on Wall Street amid weak US manufacturing data and mounting trade fears. 

Singapore's Straits Times Index headed down 0.37 per cent or 11.79 points to 3,176.18 as at 9.02am.

Losers outnumbered gainers 82 to 25, after 43.97 million securities worth S$55.8 million changed hands.

The most active counter was Golden Agri-Resources, which held steady at S$0.215 with 12.3 million shares changing hands. Other heavily traded securities included Rex International which fell 2.2 per cent or 0.4 Singapore cent to S$0.178 with 3.3 million shares traded, as well as Yangzijiang Shipbuilding which fell 1.87 per cent or two cents to S$1.05 with three million shares traded.

Banking stocks fell in early morning trade, with DBS down 0.24 per cent or six Singapore cents to S$25.07. UOB fell 0.5 per cent or 13 cents to S$25.64, while OCBC dropped 0.2 per cent, or two cents to S$10.73.

Other active index counters included Singtel which fell 0.3 per cent or one Singapore cent to S$3.45, and AEM, which fell 1.5 per cent or three cents to S$1.93.

In the US, stocks retreated from last week's record highs on Monday, amid weak US manufacturing data and fresh trade worries. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.95 per cent to 27,784.06, the S&P 500 lost 0.86 per cent to 3,113.98 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.12 per cent to 8,567.99.

Shares in Europe also posted their biggest daily drop in two months on Monday. Most major markets including Germany and France fell more than 2 per cent, due to a decline in global sentiment triggered by a reimposition of US metal tariffs on Brazil and Argentina. 

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened lower on Tuesday, weighed by a higher yen against the US dollar and Wall Street falls. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index declined 1.25 per cent to 23,235.55 in early trade, while the Topix index fell 1.1 per cent to 1,695.66.