Singapore stocks open higher on Friday; STI up 0.4%

SINGAPORE shares edged up at Friday's open, with the Straits Times Index (STI) gaining 0.4 per cent or 11.22 points to 3,082.92 as at 9.03am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 90 to 57, after 77.8 million securities worth S$98.1 million changed hands.

The most active counter by volume was VCPlus 43E , which saw 17.4 million of its shares worth S$480,000 million traded as at 9.03am. Its shares gained 0.3 Singapore cent or 12.5 per cent to 2.7 cents.

Ascott Residence Trust HMN was also actively traded, with 6.5 million shares worth S$6.5 million changing hands. Its shares were down 5.5 cents or 5.3 per cent at 98.5 cents. The real estate investment trust (Reit) on Thursday proposed a private placement to fund its acquisition of a Texas student housing asset, among other things. On Friday, its manager said the private placement closed about two times covered and was priced at the bottom end of its price range at 98.3 Singapore cents per new stapled security.

Among index stocks, Singtel Z74 saw brisk trading, with 3.0 million units worth S$7.2 million changing hands. Shares of the telco were trading flat at S$2.37.

The trio of local banks were mixed in early trade. UOB U11 gained S$0.21 or 0.8 per cent to S$25.66, and OCBC O39 was up S$0.10 or 0.9 per cent to S$11.70. Meanwhile, DBS D05 fell S$0.02 or 0.1 per cent to S$30.22.

In the US, Wall Street stocks ended lower again on Thursday as markets weighed better employment data against uncertainty over US monetary policy and President Joe Biden's infrastructure package.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.4 per cent to 34,879.38, the broad-based S&P 500 declined 0.2 per cent to 4,493.28, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.3 per cent to 15,248.25.

In Europe, stocks bounced off session lows to end little changed on Thursday after the European Central Bank (ECB) signalled it will only slightly reduce its emergency bond purchases over the coming quarter, as widely expected.

After falling as much as 0.9 per cent in morning trade, the pan-European Stoxx 600 index ended largely unchanged around 467.57 points. The index had shed 1.5 per cent over the past two days on fears of a more hawkish-than-expected ECB.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Friday, shrugging off falls on Wall Street, with investors focused on Japanese politics after Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced he will not seek re-election.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.4 per cent or 105.78 points at 30,113.97 in early trade, while the broader Topix index edged up 0.3 per cent or 5.96 points to 2,070.89.