Singapore shares rise at Monday's open; STI up 0.7%

SINGAPORE stocks opened higher on Monday led by gains in banks and other index counters after Wall Street stocks climbed on Friday.

Singapore's Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.7 per cent or 18.5 points to 2,558.13 as at 9.04am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 122 to 48, after 148.8 million securities worth S$101.3 million changed hands.

One of the most active counters by volume was Avarga, which advanced 5.5 per cent or 1.5 Singapore cents to 29 cents, with 4.4 million shares changing hands.

Other heavily traded securities included NetLink NBN Trust which was up 0.5 per cent or 0.5 Singapore cent to 98 cents with 3.6 million shares traded, as well as Halcyon Agri Corp, which rose 9.1 per cent or S$0.02 to S$0.24, with 2.8 million shares traded.

Banking stocks rose in early morning trade. DBS was trading up 1.7 per cent or S$0.36 to S$21.12, UOB rose 0.7 per cent or S$0.14 to S$19.80, while OCBC advanced 0.7 per cent or S$0.06 to S$8.77.

Other active index counters included Singtel which held steady at S$2.30 and Ascendas Real Estate Investment Trust, which was up 1.2 per cent or S$0.04 to S$3.35.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Monday following rallies on Wall Street, with a higher yen against the US dollar capping the upside. The Nikkei 225 index was up 1.2 per cent to 23,157.15 in early trade, while the Topix index gained 1.2 per cent to 1,623.55.