Singapore shares fall at Monday’s open; STI down 0.32 per cent

SINGAPORE stocks opened lower on Monday (Mar 20), tracking losses in global markets following ongoing banking woes worldwide.

As at 9.01am, the Straits Times Index (STI) fell 0.32 per cent or 10.11 points to 3,173.17.

Losers outnumbered gainers 73 to 47, after 46.3 million securities worth S$55.1 million changed hands. 

The most active counter by volume was Sembcorp Marine which opened flat at S$0.107, with 22.5 million securities traded. Yangzijiang Shipbuilding , another heavily traded counter, was down 3.3 per cent or S$0.04 to S$1.18 as of 9.08am. Shares of Thomson Medical opened flat at S$0.071.

Banking shares were mixed early in morning trade. DBS rose 0.2 per cent or S$0.07 to S$32.62, as at 9.09am. UOB was down S$0.04 or S$0.1 per cent at S$28.50 while OCBC shares fell 0.7 per cent or S$0.08 at S$12.18.

Meanwhile, Wall Street stocks ended lower on Friday as banking shares resumed their sell-off, after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank the previous weekend that triggered an unruly week of trading. 

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 1.2 per cent lower at 31,861.98 and the broad-based S&P 500 fell 1.1 per cent to 3,916.64. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index declined 0.7 per cent to end at 11,630.51.

European shares recorded the worst week in five months on bank crisis jitters. The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed the day 1.3 per cent lower at 436.31, dragged down by bank, insurance and financial services stocks. This was despite supportive measures from regulators across Europe, which failed to allay fears over a brewing global banking crisis.