Singapore stocks fall at open, tracking Wall Street decline; STI down 0.6%

SINGAPORE shares opened weaker on Wednesday after Wall Street failed to recover from its losses as fears mount over the crisis at property giant China Evergrande.

The Straits Times Index (STI) slipped 0.6 per cent or 18.95 points to 3,044.25 as at 9.02am. Gainers and losers were evenly matched, after 108.1 million securities worth S$101.4 million changed hands.

The most active counter by volume was Sembcorp Marine S51 , which lost 2.4 per cent or 0.2 Singapore cent to 8.3 cents, with 17.2 million shares changing hands. Temasek Holdings on Wednesday announced a mandatory conditional general cash offer for Sembmarine after the former's stake increased to 46.6 per cent due to a rights issue.

Other heavily traded securities include Hatten Land PH0 , which advanced 2.9 per cent or 0.2 Singapore cent to 7.1 cents, with 12.5 million shares traded, and Spackman Entertainment, which held steady at 0.4 Singapore cent with 5.8 million shares changing hands.

StarHub CC3 shares were flat at S$1.24 on news of its acquisition of a 50.1 per cent stake in MyRepublic's Singapore broadband business for an initial consideration of S$70.8 million. However, fellow telco Singtel started the day 0.4 per cent or S$0.01 lower at S$2.46.

Property developer Oxley Holdings 5UX was up 2.5 per cent or 0.5 Singapore cent at 20.5 cents, after it said it divested land parcels in Sydney, Australia for S$96.3 million, boosting its cash flow.

Banking stocks were in the red during early trade. DBS D05 dropped 1.3 per cent or S$0.38 to S$29.27, UOB U11 declined 0.8 per cent or S$0.02 to S$25.47, while OCBC O39 fell 0.8 per cent or S$0.09 to S$11.40.

Other active index counters include CapitaLand Investment, which was trading 1.3 per cent or S$0.04 higher at S$3.20, and ComfortDelGro, which lost 1.3 per cent or S$0.02 to S$1.51.

On Tuesday, Wall Street tried to recoup losses from the sharp slump seen in the previous session, but was unsuccessful on a whole.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.2 per cent to close at 33,919.84, the broad-based S&P 500 dipped 0.1 per cent to 4,354.19, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index managed to eke out a 0.2 per cent gain to 14,746.39.

Financial markets in Hong Kong and South Korea were closed on Wednesday for holidays.

Elsewhere, Tokyo stocks opened lower on Wednesday, following losses on Wall Street. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index dropped 0.3 per cent to 29,745.79 in early trade, while the broader Topix index fell 0.4 per cent to 2,057.28.