Singapore stocks: STI resumes Friday afternoon up 0.2% on day

SINGAPORE shares resumed trading in positive territory on Friday, with the Straits Times Index gaining 0.2 per cent, or 6.54 points to 3,254.02 as at 1pm.

Decliners outnumbered advancers 168 to 155, after about 853.8 million shares worth S$501.2 million changed hands.

Among the most heavily traded by volume, AusGroup slipped 2.2 per cent, or 0.1 Singapore cent to 4.5 Singapore cents with 61.9 million shares traded, while MarcoPolo Marine shed 4.2 per cent, or 0.1 Singapore cent to 2.3 Singapore cents with 45.6 million shares traded.

Meanwhile, SunMoon Food gained 5.9 per cent, or 0.3 Singapore cent to 5.4 Singapore cents, with 31.4 million shares traded. This comes after the fruits distributor on Thursday said it has entered into a settlement agreement with a supplier for the US$1.2 million owed by its subsidiary.

Banking stocks were also in the green by the afternoon trade. DBS was up 0.8 per cent, or 20 Singapore cents to S$26.06, UOB gained 0.2 per cent, or four Singapore cents to S$26.83, and OCBC added 0.3 per cent, or three Singapore cents to S$11.06.

Other active index stocks included Singtel which lost 1.8 per cent, or six Singapore cents to S$3.30, while CapitaLand gained 1 per cent, or four Singapore cents to S$3.88.

On Thursday, Singtel associate Bharti Airtel proposed to raise up to US$3 billion in a mega debt-equity exercise ahead of its deadline to pay a hefty fine.

Separately, Singapore's telecom regulator also announced that it has pushed back the industry deadline for 5G licence bids to Feb 17. The initial deadline was Jan 21.