Singapore shares rise before Chinese New Year break; STI up 0.1%

SINGAPORE stocks ended higher on Tuesday (Jan 28), before markets closed for the Chinese New Year break. 

At the close, the Straits Times Index (STI) was up 0.1 per cent or 4.36 points at 3,801.07. Across the broader market, gainers outnumbered losers 249 to 186, after 622.7 million securities worth S$904.1 million changed hands.

Trading volume was thin, with the market closing early on the eve of a two-day break.

Several bourses in the region, including the ones in Indonesia, South Korea and Shanghai, were also closed on Tuesday.

CapitaLand Ascendas Reit (Clar) was the top gainer on Tuesday, up 2 per cent or S$0.05 at S$2.61.

Meanwhile, Sembcorp Industries was the biggest decliner, falling 2.2 per cent or S$0.12 to S$5.43.

The local banks saw mixed trading. OCBC lost 0.3 per cent or S$0.05 to S$17.04, UOB fell 0.4 per cent or S$0.15 to S$36.87, and DBS gained 0.3 per cent or S$0.13 to S$43.73.

Overnight, US markets ended mixed, with the Dow finishing higher. The launch of Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot DeepSeek became the dominant theme for market sentiment overnight, noted IG market strategist Yeap Jun Rong.

“There may be some “sell first, think later” thinking at play, with opinion divided on whether DeepSeek will eventually be the ‘gamechanger’ that reshapes the US AI landscape,” he said.

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“If anything, market participants dislike uncertainties, and are clearly unwilling to take risks in the near term.”