Singapore shares open higher on Friday; STI up 0.3%

SINGAPORE stocks started Friday (Jul 8) on a positive note after 4 days of consecutive gains amongst Wall Street stocks.

As at 9 am, the Straits Times Index (STI) gained 0.3 per cent or 8.24 points to 3,137.64. Gainers outnumbered losers 88 to 19 after 53.8 million securities worth S$46.7 million changed hands.

Gold mining and exploration company Shen Yao  was the top-traded counter by volume, holding steady at S$0.002 after 13.5 million shares changed hands at the open.

This was followed by  Golden Agri-Resources , which opened flat at S$0.255 with 2.9 million shares traded and Sembcorp Marine , which opened unchanged at S$0.104 after 2.5 million shares changed hands.

Among index stocks, YZJ Shipbuilding was the most actively traded counter, opening unchanged at S$0.915 with 2 million shares changing hands as at 9 am.

The trio of local banks rose at Friday’s open.  DBS inched up 0.1 per cent or S$0.02 to S$30.18, UOB rose 0.7 per cent or S$0.19 to S$26.62 while OCBC was up 0.4 per cent or S$0.05 at S$11.45.

Over in the US, equities extended its rally for the fourth consecutive day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.1 per cent to 31,384.15. The broad-based S&P 500 rose 1.5 per cent to 3,902.47, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 2.3 per cent to 11,621.35.

European stocks were similarly up on Thursday as surging oil and metal prices lifted commodity stocks while a jump in banks boosted Italy’s main index 3.1 per cent, its biggest daily increase since mid-March.

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The continent-wide Stoxx 600 index was up 1.9 per cent on broad-based gains.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened Friday higher following Wall Street gains.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.5 per cent or 129.69 points at 26,620.22 in early trade, while the broader Topix index advanced 0.4 per cent or 6.63 points to 1,888.96.