Singapore stocks climb at Thursday's open following 7.6% GDP growth; STI up 0.4%

SINGAPORE stocks were in green on Thursday morning (Feb 17) in tandem with Singapore's 2021 gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 7.6 per cent year on year announced today, faster than an advanced estimated 7.2 per cent.

The Straits Times Index (STI) climbed 0.4 per cent or 12.71 points to 3,452.01 as at 9.03 am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 94 to 37 after 84.4 million securities worth S$106.1 million changed hands.

The most actively traded counter by volume in early trade on Thursday was DiSa 532 . The counter traded flat at S$0.005 with 30 million shares trading hands.

Mainboard-listed ComfortDelGro C52 was also among the most heavily traded securities with its shares trading at S$1.51, up 2.7 per cent or S$0.04.

Other actively traded counters by volume on Thursday morning included Mapletree Commercial Trust (MCT) N2IU and Singtel Z74 . MCT shares rose 0.6 per cent or S$0.01 to trade at S$1.83, while shares of Singtel jumped 0.4 per cent or S$0.01 to trade at S$2.56.

The trio of local banks all advanced on Thursday morning. UOB U11 shares were trading at S$33.06, up 1 per cent or S$0.31, DBSD05 increased by 0.3 per cent or S$0.12 to S$36.92, while OCBC O39 scaled up 0.1 per cent or S$0.01 to S$13.41.

Over on Wall Street, stocks ended mixed on Wednesday after most of the session was spent deep in the red, following the release of the US Federal Reserve minutes. The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.2 per cent at 34,934.27. The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.1 per cent to 4,475.01, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 0.1 per cent to 14,124.09.

Meanwhile, European shares made cautious gains on Wednesday, pushed higher by commodity-heavy stocks with Russia-Ukraine tensions in focus. The continent-wide Stoxx 600 index inched up 0.1 per cent to 467.77.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo shares opened lower on Thursday as investors monitored tensions over Ukraine and digested healthy US indicators. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index eased 0.1 per cent or 28.96 points to 27,431.44 while the broader Topix index lost 0.2 per cent or 2.98 points to 1,943.65.