Singapore shares rise at Friday’s open amid upbeat corporate earnings; STI up 0.7%

SINGAPORE shares were pulled into positive territory on Friday (Jul 29), tracking overnight gains on Wall Street and Europe, as well as slew of results from banks, hospitality trusts and national carrier Singapore Airlines.

Investors also cheered upbeat results from UOB , the first of Singapore’s trio of local banks to post its second-quarter results, as well as Singapore Airlines , which soared back into the black for Q1.

Singapore’s Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.7 per cent or 22.1 points to 3,242.75 as at 9.03 am. Gainers outnumbered losers 87 to 42, after 70.5 million securities worth S$99.3 million changed hands.

The most active counter by volume was Sembcorp Marine , which rose 0.9 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.108, with 8.5 million shares traded.

Other heavily traded securities included Thai Beverage which advanced 0.8 per cent or S$0.005 to S$0.645, and Golden-Agri Resources , which held steady at S$0.265 with 4.2 million shares traded.

Singapore Airlines was up 1.9 per cent or S$0.10 to S$5.46, with 2.3 million shares traded. The national carrier on Thursday posted an operating profit of S$556 million for the first quarter ended June – the second-highest quarterly operating profit since Q3 FY2007/08.

Banking stocks rose in early morning trade. DBS was up 0.3 per cent or S$0.10 to S$31.92 and OCBC gained 0.7 per cent or S$0.08 to S$11.79. Meanwhile, UOB rose 0.9 per cent or S$0.25 to S$28.51.

This came after UOB posted an 11 per cent rise in Q2 net profit to S$1.1 billion, which was in line with the consensus forecast from a Bloomberg survey of 4 analysts.

Other active index counters included Keppel Corp and Hongkong Land . Keppel was up 1.9 per cent or S$0.13 to S$6.90. The conglomerate on Thursday posted a 65.9 per cent rise in net profit of S$497.5 million for the first half of the year ended June.

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Meanwhile, Hongkong Land rose 7.2 per cent or US$0.35 to reach US$5.21. The property play on Thursday reported an 8 per cent rise in H1 2022 underlying net profit to US$425 million.

In the US, stocks rallied again on Thursday, after a contraction of the US economy sparked expectations of a slowdown in Federal Reserve rate hikes.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 1 per cent higher at 32,529.63. The broad-based S&P 500 climbed 1.2 per cent to 4,072.43, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index tacked on 1.1 per cent to 12,162.59.

Europe’s Stoxx 600 index closed near a 7-week high on Thursday. The pan-European index ended 1.1 per cent higher at 432.77 points, rising for a second straight day. However, Spain’s IBEX 35 index fell 0.5 per cent as the eurozone’s second-biggest lender, Santander, slipped after missing profit estimates.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Friday. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.3 per cent at 27,883.64 in early trade, while the broader Topix index edged up 0.02 per cent to 1,949.21.