Singapore shares open Monday in the red; STI down 0.5%

SINGAPORE stocks opened weaker on Monday (Oct 17) morning, tracking losses on Wall Street, where participants shrugged off mostly solid bank earnings amid worries over bond yields and rising recession risks.

Data from Enterprise Singapore indicated that Singapore’s key exports growth eased in September, dragged by a contraction in electronic shipments as well as declining deliveries to most of the Republic’s top 10 key markets, including China and Hong Kong.

The Straits Times Index (STI) slipped 0.5 per cent or 14.49 points to 3,025.12 as at 9.02 am. Losers surpassed gainers 70 to 41, after 30.4 million securities worth S$46.4 million changed hands.

Sembcorp was the most active counter in terms of volume, losing 0.9 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.116, with 3.3 million shares traded.

Shares of fibre network infrastructure company NetLink NBN Trust were also heavily traded. The counter shed 1.2 per cent or S$0.01 to S$0.845, with 2.2 million shares changing hands.

Index counters Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust and Singtel saw significant trading activity. The former dropped 0.9 per cent or S$0.01 to S$1.10, while the latter fell 0.4 per cent or S$0.01 to S$2.47.

The trio of banks also began Monday’s trading session in the red. DBS was down 1.2 per cent or S$0.38 to S$32.71, UOB shed 0.3 per cent or S$0.07 to S$26.19, while OCBC was down 0.1 per cent or S$0.01 at S$11.59.

In the US, Wall Street stocks closed sharply lower on Friday as investors worried about inflation and rising interest rates while the dollar rose against the yen and sterling after the British prime minister’s firing of her finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 403.89 points or 1.3 per cent to 29,634.83, the S&P 500 lost 86.84 points or 2.4 per cent to 3,583.07 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 327.76 points or 3.1 per cent to 10,321.39.

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European stocks meanwhile closed higher on Friday, helped by an initial boost after the British government’s turnaround on tax cuts, but this faded due to continued uncertainty about its fiscal stance.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index closed up 0.6 per cent, building on Thursday’s rally but was still off session highs hit immediately after British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced the scrapping of parts of the government’s fiscal programme.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened lower on Monday, with investors disheartened by falls on Wall Street.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 1 per cent or 278.86 points at 26,811.9 in early trade, while the broader Topix index was down 0.7 per cent or 13.90 points at 1,884.29.