Singapore stocks fall at Monday's open; STI down 0.2%

SINGAPORE stocks dropped slightly in early trade on Monday (Feb 28) morning after gaining on Friday.

The Straits Times Index (STI) fell 0.2 per cent or 6.82 to 3,287.65 as at 9.03 am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 87 to 58 after 50.8 million securities worth S$72.2 million changed hands.

The most actively traded counter by volume was Catalist-listed Shen Yao A78 . The counter was flat at S$0.003 with 5.7 million shares changing hands.

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding BS6 was also actively traded on Monday morning. Shares of the company were up 0.7 per cent or S$0.01 to S$1.41. The mainboard-listed company posted on Sunday a net profit of 2.1 billion yuan (S$441.4 million) for the 6 months ended Dec 31, 2021, up 54 per cent from the 1.3 billion yuan it posted during the same period a year earlier.

Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) Z74 was also heavily traded, with shares dropping 1.2 per cent or S$0.03 to S$2.57.

The trio of local banks were all in red on Monday morning.

DBS D05 shares fell 0.3 per cent or S$0.10 to S$34.85, OCBC O39 tumbled 0.2 per cent or S$0.02 to S$11.83 while UOB U11 dr opped 0.6 per cent or S$0.18 to trade at S$30.39 as at 9.03 am.

Over on Wall Street, US stocks powered higher on Friday as US traders snapped up equity bargains.

The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 2.5 per cent higher at 34,058.75, the S&P 500 rose 2.2 per cent at 4,384.65 while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 1.6 per cent higher at 13,694.62.

Meanwhile, Europe's main stocks index roared back on Friday as investors hunted for bargains following a bruising sell-off after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The pan-European Stoxx 600 ended up 3.3 per cent.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened lower on Monday with investors closely watching the Ukraine crisis. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.5 per cent or 143.23 points at 26,333.27 in early trade, while the broader Topix index was down 0.2 per cent or 2.95 points at 1,873.29.