Singapore stocks climb at Friday's open; STI up 1.6%

SINGAPORE stocks climbed up in early trade on Friday (Feb 25) morning after US stocks ended sharply higher overnight as US President Joe Biden unveiled harsh new sanctions against Russia after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

The Straits Times Index (STI) grew 1.6 per cent or 52.24 points to 3,328.30 as at 9.04 am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 147 to 39 after 135.2 million securities worth S$172.1 million changed hands.

The most actively traded counter by volume at Friday's open was Catalist-listed Disa 532 . The counter traded up 25 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.005 with 39.6 million shares trading hands.

Mainboard-listed Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) Z74 was among the most heavily traded securities on Friday morning. Shares of the company rose 1.2 per cent or S$0.03 to S$2.56.

Indonesian coal producer Geo Energy Resources RE4 was also actively traded with 6.3 million shares changing hands. The company on Thursday posted its net profit of US$129.8 million for the second half of the fiscal year ended December, up from earnings of US$28.4 million in the corresponding year-ago period. Shares of Geo Energy were up 7.6 per cent or S$0.03 to S$0.425.

The trio of local banks were all in green on Friday morning.

DBS D05 shares jumped 2.6 per cent or S$0.89 to S$35.64, UOB U11 was up 1.7 per cent or S$0.52 to S$31.27 and OCBC O39 advanced 1.4 per cent or S$0.17 to S$12.17 as at 9.04 am.

Over on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 92.07 points or 0.3 per cent to 33,223.83, the S&P 500 gained 63.2 points or 1.5 per cent to 4,288.7 and the Nasdaq Composite added 436.10 points or 3.3 per cent to 13,473.59.

Meanwhile, European stocks dived to 9-month lows on Thursday after Russia launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index tumbled 3.3 per cent to its lowest since May 2021.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Friday following gains on Wall Street. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index climbed 0.9 per cent or 242.38 points to 26,213.20 at the open, while the broader Topix index added 0.4 per cent or 8.08 points to 1,865.66.