Singapore shares open higher following US market gains; STI up 0.79%

SINGAPORE shares opened higher on Tuesday after US markets rebounded overnight following Friday's rout.

The Straits Times Index gained 24.64 points or 0.79 per cent to 3,140.95 as at 9.03am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 89 to 43, after 58.6 million securities worth S$68.1 million changed hands.

Watch-list stock Nico Steel was the most traded counter by volume in the morning, falling S$0.001 or 25 per cent to S$0.003 after 13.4 million shares were traded.

Another active counter, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, traded up S$0.02 or 2.1 per cent at S$0.96 on 3.7 million shares traded.

Thai Beverage, trading cum-dividend, was unchanged at S$0.79 after 2.7 million shares changed hands.

Index stock Singtel traded up S$0.02 or 0.6 per cent to S$3.26.

DBS was the most traded by value, up S$0.14 or 0.6 per cent to S$25.04.

Fellow banking stocks UOB and OCBC also rose on Tuesday morning. UOB increased S$0.14 or 0.6 per cent to S$25.44 and OCBC gained S$0.08 or 0.8 per cent to S$10.79.

Wall Street stocks finished solidly higher on Monday led by Tesla and other tech giants as investors started buying again following Friday's rout.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5 per cent to 28,399.54, the broad-based S&P 500 advanced 0.7 per cent to 3,248.90, and the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 1.3 per cent to 9,273.40.

A multibillion-euro merger and encouraging manufacturing data helped European shares close conformably higher on Monday after their worst week in six months amid jitters over the economic fallout from a virus outbreak in China.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index built on its gains to close up 0.3 per cent with shares of French payments services provider Ingenico Group topping the index.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.28 per cent or 63.92 points at 22,908.02 in early trade, while the broader Topix index was down 0.15 per cent or 2.58 points at 1,670.08.