Singapore shares open lower on Tuesday; STI down 0.3%

SINGAPORE stocks opened lower on Tuesday (Jul 19), tracking losses on Wall Street.

The Straits Times Index (STI) lost 0.3 per cent or 8.36 points to 3,113.40 as at 9.01 am. Decliners outnumbered advancers 81 to 40 after 34.9 million securities worth S$48.3 million changed hands.

Sembcorp Marine was the top traded counter by volume, up 1 per cent or S$0.001 at S$0.101 with some 6.8 million shares traded in the morning.

Other heavily traded counters include Oceanus , which was trading flat at S$0.016 after 2.5 million shares changed hands, and Yangzijiang Financial Holding , which was also flat at S$0.40 after about 2 million shares were traded.

Index counter Sembcorp Industries also saw active trading with 2 million shares changing hands. It was up 2.7 per cent or S$0.08 at S$3.01.

Sembcorp announced on Tuesday morning that its profits are expected to be materially higher for the first half of 2022 compared to the year ago period, on the back of continued high electricity prices in Singapore and India.

The trio of local banks were all lower in early trade. As at 9.01 am, DBS dropped 0.6 per cent or S$0.19 to S$29.77, UOB opened 0.1 per cent or S$0.03 lower at S$26.38 and OCBC was down 0.4 per cent or S$0.04 at S$11.30.

In the US, Wall Street stocks fell on Monday, halting Friday’s positive momentum. An early rally petered out following a report that Apple plans to trim spending and hiring. Investors also exercised caution over signs of possible recession.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.7 per cent to finish at 31,072.61. The broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.8 per cent to 3,830.85, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also shed 0.8 per cent to 11,360.05.

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Over in Europe, Monday’s shares closed slightly higher after dropping from session highs. Gazprom, which has a monopoly on Russian gas exports by pipeline, reportedly could not guarantee gas supplies to Europe, stoking energy crunch worries.

The continent-wide Stoxx 600 index, which had risen as much as 1.5 per cent to hit 3-week peaks earlier in the session, cut gains to close 0.9 per cent up.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo resumed trading higher after the long weekend on Tuesday, with investors encouraged by Wall Street rallies last week, despite Monday’s falls. 

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.7 per cent or 195.76 points at 26,984.23 in early trade, while the broader Topix index edged up 0.66 per cent or 12.52 points to 1,905.02.