Singapore stocks open higher on Tuesday, tracking Wall Street gains; STI up 0.7%

SINGAPORE shares rose in early trade on Tuesday (Jan 4), following fresh records set on Wall Street in a bullish open to 2022.

The Straits Times Index (STI) climbed 0.7 per cent or 20.6 points to 3,154.85 as at 9.02 am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 90 to 29, after 54.7 million securities worth S$74.2 million changed hands.

Property developer OKH Global S3N was among the most actively traded in terms of volume as at 9.02 am, inching up S$0.001 or 3.3 per cent to S$0.031, with 5.5 million shares traded.

Geo Energy Resources RE4 was also actively traded at the open, unchanged at S$0.325 with 1.8 million shares changing hands. This comes after the Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources announced that it has imposed a temporary ban on all coal export sales by Indonesian coal miners for the whole of January.

Index counter CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust C38U also saw active trading on Tuesday morning, with 1.7 million units traded. The counter was trading at S$2.07, up S$0.02 or 1 per cent.

The trio of local banks all saw gains on Tuesday morning. DBS D05 was trading up S$0.30 or 0.9 per cent at S$33.09, UOB U11 advanced S$0.19 or 0.7 per cent to S$27.12, while OCBC O39 climbed S$0.11 or 1 per cent to S$11.51 as at 9.02 am.

Over on Wall Street, stocks closed at fresh records on Monday despite expectations for higher interest rates.

The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 0.6 per cent to 4,796.56, the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 1.2 per cent to 15,832.80, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7 per cent to 36,585.06.

European shares ended at all-time highs on Monday, starting the year on an upbeat mood on hopes of steady economic recovery despite a surge in Covid-19 cases due to the Omicron variant.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index ended 0.5 per cent higher at a record close of 489.99.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened 2022 on an exuberant note on Tuesday, tracking gains on Wall Street.

The Nikkei 225 rose 1 per cent or 291.01 points to 29,082.72 in early trade, while the broader Topix index advanced 0.9 per cent or 18.19 points to 2,010.52.