STI up 0.3% to 3,214.43; regional markets little changed ahead of FOMC meeting

SINGAPORE stocks closed higher on local heavyweights' earnings releases, with the benchmark Straits Times Index rising 9.53 points or 0.3 per cent to 3,214.43 points on Tuesday.

Precision-engineering company UMS was among the stocks that registered gains, closing 6.62 per cent higher at S$1.45. Singapore Exchange market strategist Geoff Howie said UMS has been among the top 40 traded Singapore stocks so far in 2021, with a turnover up more than 60 per cent from 2020 levels.

Top Glove, despite announcing a day earlier that it had resolved all 11 International Labour Organization (ILO) indicators of forced labour, shed 1.05 per cent to S$1.88.

mm2 Asia, after a favourable report from UOB Kay Hian that recommended a "buy", became the most actively-traded counter with about 219.4 million shares changing hands. The shares closed S$0.073 on a gain of 5.8 per cent.

Gainers outnumbered losers 245 to 223; 1.9 billion securities worth S$1.23 billion were transacted.

Senior market analyst at Oanda, Jeffrey Halley, said Singapore's better performance was powered by local heavyweights' earnings releases, while investors elsewhere in the region are taking some exposure off the table ahead of the United States Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decision on April 28.

Most key markets in the region were little changed, except those in Malaysia and Japan.

The Shanghai Composite Index was marginally up by 0.04 per cent to 3,442.61, whereas Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index shed 0.04 per cent to 28,941.54 points.

South Korea's Kospi Index was 0.07 per cent lower at 3,215.42 points, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index dropped 0.17 per cent to 7,033.83 points.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite slid 1.03 per cent to 1,606.68 points. Japan's Nikkei 225 closed at 28,991.89 points or 0.46 per cent lower.