Singapore stocks tumble at Tuesday’s open, tracking US market sell-off; STI down 0.7%

SINGAPORE stocks fell in early trade on Tuesday (Jun 14) morning with US stocks entering bear market territory as the S&P 500 closed at its lowest level since January 2021.  

The Straits Times Index (STI) fell 0.7 per cent or 23.02 points to 3,116.33 as at 9.02 am. Losers outnumbered gainers 113 to 25 after 80.9 million securities worth S$67.1 million changed hands.

Sembcorp Marine was the top traded counter by volume, which stayed flat at S$0.114 with 6.6 million shares traded in the morning. The marine and offshore engineering group announced it had bagged a US$150 million EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract from Emgepron, a state-owned company linked to the Ministry of Defence in Brazil.

Other heavily traded securities include HGH , which also remained flat at S$0.011 with 6.2 million shares changing hands, as well as ThaiBev , which lost 0.8 per cent or S$0.005 to S$0.655 with 2.6 million shares traded.

Among index counters, Singtel remained flat at S$2.54 with 1.3 million shares changing hands at the open.

The trio of local banks were all in the red in early trade. DBS was down 0.7 per cent or S$0.21 at S$29.69, UOB fell 1.4 per cent or S$0.37 to S$26.84, while OCBC shed 0.6 per cent or S$0.07 to S$11.38.

In the US, stocks officially entered “bear market” territory on Monday following another drubbing as investors bet on more aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes to address inflation.

The S&P 500, the broad-based equity index, plummeted 3.9 per cent to finish the day at 3,749.53, a drop of more than 20 per cent from its most recent peak on Jan 4 – the definition of a bear market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2.8 per cent to end at 30,516.74, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index fell 4.7 per cent to 10,809.23. It was Wall Street’s fourth straight day of losses and comes ahead of Wednesday’s Fed decision.

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Similarly, European stocks tumbled to 3-month lows on Monday as a sharp rise in US inflation raised concerns about aggressive interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index fell 2.4 per cent to 412.52, its lowest since Mar 7.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo shares opened lower on Tuesday extending a rout on Wall Street as investors bet on more aggressive US Federal Reserve rate hikes to address inflation following key price data. 

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 1.6 per cent or 419.93 points at 26,567.51 in early trade, while the broader Topix index was down 1.4 per cent or 26.24 points at 1,874.82.