Singapore stocks open lower on Wednesday; STI down 0.7%

SINGAPORE shares opened lower for the third straight day on Wednesday, amid mounting concerns over the fast-spreading novel coronavirus variant in Britain as well as underwhelming US economic data following a spike in local infections and deaths.

The Straits Times Index (STI) fell 18.9 points or 0.7 per cent to 2,808.39 as at 9.02am.

Losers outnumbered gainers 77 to 41, as 47.5 million securities worth S$47.6 million changed hands.

Among the index securities, the most heavily traded by volume was Thai Beverage, which declined 0.7 per cent or 0.5 Singapore cent to 73 cents with 2.1 million shares changing hands.

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding dipped S$0.01 or 1.1 per cent to S$0.92 with 4.3 million shares traded. Earlier this week, the Chinese shipbuilder announced that it had bagged US$162 million in new containership orders.

The trio of local banks were down in early trade. DBS fell 1.1 per cent or S$0.27 to S$24.78, UOB declined 1.2 per cent or S$0.27 to S$22.31, while OCBC slipped 0.9 per cent or S$0.09 to S$9.93.

US equities closed mainly lower on Tuesday after choppy trading despite overwhelming approval in Congress of the long-awaited US$900 billion relief package.

The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.7 per cent to finish at 30,015.51, the broad-based S&P 500 slipped 0.2 per cent to 3,687.26, but the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index bucked the trend, gaining 0.5 per cent to end at a new record of 12,807.92.

After Wall Street closed, outgoing US President Donald Trump rejected the US$900 billion stimulus bill, demanding bigger payments and calling the Covid-19 relief bill a "disgrace".

Meanwhile, European stocks rebounded to six-week highs on Tuesday, driven by optimism over Brexit and US stimulus news. The Stoxx 600 index recovered from a more than 2 per cent slide in the previous session to finish 1.2 per cent higher on broad-based gains.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Wednesday, appearing largely unaffected by Wall Street. The Nikkei 225 index rose 0.4 per cent or 115.37 points to 26,551.76 in early trade, while the broader Topix index put on 0.4 per cent or 7.34 points at 1,768.46.