Singapore stocks fall at Friday's open; STI slips 0.3%

SINGAPORE shares opened lower on Friday amid a mixed performance on Wall Street overnight.

The Straits Times Index (STI) lost 0.3 per cent or 9.6 points to 3,128.71 as at 9.01am. Gainers outnumbered losers 84 to 54, with 207.3 million securities worth S$49.8 million changing hands.

Advanced Systems was the most actively traded counter by volume, with 148.6 million shares worth S$150,000 traded as at 9.01am. Its shares were flat at 0.1 Singapore cent.

The semiconductor equipment manufacturer said in a Thursday filing that it is looking to consolidate every 375 of its existing ordinary shares into one ordinary share. It also proposed a bonus issue of up to 19.8 million free warrants, subject to the completion of the share consolidation.

MC Payment also saw brisk trading, with 1.2 million shares worth S$460,000 changing hands within the first minute of market open. Its shares gained 13.6 per cent or 4.5 Singapore cents to 37.5 cents.

In a bourse filing on Thursday, the digital payments company said it received a letter of intent from Indonesia-based payments and remittance company Dompet Harapan Bangsa (OY!) to explore investment opportunities. OY! is looking to take a strategic equity stake in MC Payment.

Index stock Yangzijiang Shipbuilding was also actively traded, with 2.7 million shares worth S$3.7 million traded as at 9.01am. The counter was up 0.7 per cent or S$0.01 at S$1.39.

OCBC fell 1.2 per cent or S$0.15 to S$11.97, along with slides in other bank stocks. Singapore's second-biggest bank on Thursday announced the appointment of its head of group operations and technology Lim Khiang Tong as the bank's group COO.

Over on Wall Street, stocks were mixed on Thursday as investors shifted patterns to buy technology giants and shun energy equities, as long-term bond yields retreated. This came a day after the Federal Reserve signalled an earlier timeline for raising interest rates.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6 per cent to 33,823.45, while the broad-based S&P 500 dipped less than 0.1 per cent to 4,221.86. The tech-rich Nasdaq jumped 0.9 per cent to end the day at 14,161.35.

European stocks closed slightly lower on Thursday as hawkish signals from the Federal Reserve raised concerns over early policy tightening. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was down 0.1 per cent at 459.33, ending its nine-day winning streak.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened mixed on Friday. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was helped by the tech share rally in the US, even as focus shifts to the Bank of Japan's policy decision later in the day. It gained 75.82 points to 29,094.15 in early trade, while the broader Topix index declined 3.77 points to 1,959.80.