Singapore shares flattish amid mixed regional showing

SINGAPORE shares ended a tad lower on Thursday (Jan 18) while regional bourses were a mixed bag after Wall Street posted red ink overnight.

The Straits Times Index inched down 2.44 points or 0.1 per cent to 3,139.78 points. Elsewhere in Asia, the showing was a mixed bag with the Jakarta Composite Index 0.6 per cent higher while the Shanghai Composite closed 0.4 per cent down.

Wall Street extended the sell-off on Tuesday as the United States’ better-than-expected macro data pointed towards its central bank’s less-than-eager inclination to cut rates.

Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, said that the Federal Reserve appears to be setting a higher bar for rate cuts than the market initially anticipated.

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding had a boost of 1.3 per cent in its share price to S$1.60, a day after it reported bagging an order to build six container ships but without stating the value of the deal. The counter was one of the five manufacturing index stocks with the highest net institutional inflow over the past 12 sessions, based on Singapore Exchange data.

The China-based vessel maker was the second-most traded stock with about 25.4 million shares transacted while Seatrium was top with 143.9 million shares traded. Seatrium closed 0.9 per cent higher at S$0.114.

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Yangzijiang Financial , the investment management company spun off from Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, closed 1.5 per cent lower at S$0.32 despite a raft of share repurchases in the past week.

Decliners beat gainers 261 to 254 across the broader market, with 1.1 billion securities traded at a total value of S$1 billion.