STI finishes the week with slight recovery of 0.02%

AFTER a four-day decline, the benchmark Straits Times Index finally ended up 0.62 point or 0.02 per cent to close at 2,528.54 on Friday.

The top gainer for the day was Hongkong Land, which gained US$0.11 or 2.93 per cent to close at US$3.86.

OCBC Bank ended the week in the red, with the biggest decline of S$0.16 or 1.81 per cent to close at S$8.67. This was despite the bank's announcement of its first sustainable finance transaction in South Korea.

On Friday, OCBC Bank said in a statement that it has provided a green loan of 115 billion South Korean won (S$132.4 million) to M&G Real Estate Asia to refinance an investment in Northgate, a green building in Seoul's central business district, with the bank as the sole lender and green adviser.

The loan is the country's first green loan supporting the property sector, said the bank. OCBC Bank head of global corporate banking Elaine Lam also said the lender is looking to grow its sustainable finance portfolio to S$25 billion by 2025.

On the other hand, UOB and DBS saw their shares close up. UOB gained 0.2 per cent to close at S$19.92, while DBS inched up 0.048 per cent to close at S$20.73.

Advancers outnumbered decliners 247 to 163 on Friday, with 1.91 billion securities worth S$1.23 billion changing hands.

Across the region, Asian markets, too, rebounded from Thursday's decline. The Nikkei 225 Index edged up 0.17 per cent to close at 22,920.30, while the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.5 per cent to 3,380.68, boosted by consumer and healthcare firms. The Hang Seng Index also gained 1.3 per cent to close at 25,113.84.

In South Korea, the benchmark Kospi climbed 1.34 per cent to close at 2,304.59, after customs office data showed on Friday that the country's exports fell in single digits in the first 20 days of August, indicating signs of recovery from the fallout of the Covid-19 outbreak.