Singapore stocks open lower on Monday, tracking Wall Street tumble; STI down 0.5%

SINGAPORE shares fell when trading began at the start of the week, with the Straits Times Index (STI) retreating 15.10 points or 0.5 per cent to 2,887.42 as at 9am on Monday.

Decliners outnumbered advancers 108 to 49, after about 127.7 million shares worth S$67.4 million changed hands.

IG senior market strategist Pan Jingyi told The Business Times on Monday that the STI is expected to slip alongside US futures going into the new week.

"Volatility in the equity market had picked up last week on the back of the GameStop episode and concerns with the hedge fund deleveraging, which may well sustain into this week," she said.

Nonetheless, this is expected to be a short-term phenomenon, with the key themes, including an improving economic outlook, supportive of longer-term gains, Ms Pan noted.

On the Singapore bourse, the most heavily traded among the index securities was Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, which fell 0.5 Singapore cent or 0.5 per cent to 98 cents, with 1.8 million shares traded.

Singtel shed S$0.03 or 1.3 per cent to S$2.33, with 1.5 million shares changing hands.

The trio of local lenders were mixed in early trade. DBS lost S$0.33 or 1.3 per cent to S$24.85, UOB fell S$0.20 or 0.9 per cent to S$23.18, while OCBC edged up S$0.01 or 0.1 per cent to S$10.33.

Other active stocks include iFast, which jumped S$0.73 or 13.3 per cent to S$6.24. This comes after DBS Group Research last week raised its target price on the wealth management platform to S$6.40 from S$3.96 previously, citing more room for growth in the firm's total assets under administration.

Shares of Singapore Exchange (SGX) dropped S$0.11 or 1.1 per cent to S$9.79. Marketnode, the joint venture between SGX and Temasek announced last week, has entered into a partnership with fixed income issuance and data company Covalent Capital.

Meanwhile, Parkway Life Reit units declined S$0.06 or 1.5 per cent to S$4.09. The real estate investment trust (Reit) on Friday said it is divesting its non-core industrial property in Japan for some 2.9 billion yen (S$37.1 million). It is expected to recognise an estimated gain of about S$5.1 million, the Reit manager said.

Over on Wall Street, US equities concluded a bad week with another volatile session on Friday as the buying frenzy over GameStop and some other equities resumed amid stepped-up scrutiny from regulators. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 2 per cent lower at 29,982.62. The broad-based S&P 500 fell 1.9 per cent to 3,714.24, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 2 per cent to 13,070.69.

"Moving into the fresh week, besides scrutinising the continued market volatility, the series of economic data and earnings will be of interest," added Ms Pan. "US earnings including FANG names such as Alphabet and Amazon.com will be the highlights, while US non-farm payrolls and the slew of Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) data will offer insights into January economic conditions."

European stocks fell on Friday, recording their worst weekly performance since October as concerns around the slow rollout of Covid-19 vaccines mount. The benchmark Stoxx 600 index lost 1.9 per cent, erasing all of January's gains and ending the week 3.1 per cent lower.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Monday, as investors kept their focus on Japanese corporate earnings reports. Both the benchmark Nikkei 225 index and the broader Topix index edged up 0.2 per cent each in early trade.