Singapore stocks rise at Thursday's open; STI up 0.2%

SINGAPORE shares opened higher on Thursday on the back of strong earnings from the trio of local banks.

The Straits Times Index (STI) edged up 0.2 per cent or 5.65 points to 3,188.55 as at 9.04am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 72 to 68, after 65.8 million securities worth S$97.3 million changed hands.

Index counters Yangzijiang Shipbuilding BS6 and ThaiBev Y92 were among the most heavily traded counters by volume on Thursday morning. Yangzijiang saw 5.4 million shares worth S$7.7 million changing hands in the first four minutes of trade, with the share price up S$0.01 or 0.7 per cent to S$1.44.

ThaiBev saw some 4.3 million of its shares worth S$2.8 million changing hands by 9.04am, although the counter remained unchanged at 66.5 Singapore cents.

Other counters that saw active trading were those that reported earnings, such as Sarine Technologies U77, which surged 8 per cent or S$0.06 to S$0.81 after 2.8 million shares worth S$2.2 million changed hands, and SGX S68 , which slipped 2.2 per cent or S$0.26 to S$11.79.

READ MORE:

• Sarine Tech H1 profit surges to US$12.6m on robust manufacturing and retail activity
• SGX H2 net profit falls 20.5% to S$205.6m on lower revenue

The trio of local banks were all higher in early trade. DBS D05 was up 0.9 per cent or S$0.27 to S$30.85, UOB U11 rose 0.4 per cent or S$0.11 to S$26.42, while OCBC O39 climbed 0.4 per cent or S$0.05 to S$12.51.

In the US, Wall Street mostly fell on Thursday following lacklustre hiring data that offset other strong economic reports, exacerbating worries that the recovery from last year's downturn is slowing.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.9 per cent to 34,792.67, the broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.5 per cent to 4,402.66, retreating from a record, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.1 per cent to 14,780.53.

European shares ended at fresh highs on Wednesday, with technology stocks hitting a 20-year peak, while optimism over the second-quarter earnings season continued to feed into positive sentiment. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index advanced 0.6 per cent to a record high of 468.22 points, extending its record-setting run to a third day.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened slightly higher on Thursday, helped by robust corporate earnings and a lull in the yen's appreciation against the dollar. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.1 per cent or 22.34 points at 27,606.42 in early trade, while the broader Topix index rose 0.1 per cent or 1.63 points to 1,923.06.