Singapore shares fall at Thursday’s open tracking Wall Street retreat; STI down 0.4%

SINGAPORE shares slipped when trading began on Thursday (Feb 9), tracking a sell-off on Wall Street amid fears that the US Federal Reserve would keep interest rates high longer than needed.

On the Singapore bourse, the Straits Times Index (STI) headed down 0.4 per cent or 15.01 points to 3,373.51 as at 9.04 am. Losers outnumbered gainers 72 to 53, after 56.9 million securities worth S$83.5 million changed hands.

The most active counter by volume was Golden Agri-Resources , which rose 2 per cent, or S$0.005 to S$0.26 with 7.9 million shares changing hands as at 9.04 am.

Other heavily traded securities included Yangzijiang Shipbuilding , which held steady at S$1.29, with 7.4 million shares traded, as well as Marco Polo Marine , which was trading flat at S$0.044, with 5.3 million shares traded.

Banking stocks started the morning mostly in the red, with UOB down 0.8 per cent or S$0.23 to S$30.61 and OCBC down 0.1 per cent or S$0.01 to S$13.14. DBS remained unchanged at S$36.19.

Other active index counters included CapitaLand Ascendas Reit , which lost 3.5 per cent or S$0.10 to S$2.80, as well as Mapletree Logistics Trust , which shed 1.2 per cent or S$0.02 to S$1.69.

SEE ALSO

Stocks to watch: Keppel Corp, SGX, Frasers Property, Prime US Reit, Manulife US Reit, BRC Asia, Straco

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In the US, stocks retreated on Wednesday amid concern over a gloomy corporate earnings outlook and worries that the Fed would continue to raise interest rates in its fight against inflation.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6 per cent to 33,949.01, the S&P 500 dropped 1.1 per cent to 4,117.86, while the Nasdaq Composite Index shed 1.7 per cent to 11,910.52.

Europe shares, on the other hand, rose on Wednesday with the pan-European Stoxx 600 finishing 0.3 per cent higher.