Singapore shares rise at Monday’s open; STI up 0.6 per cent

SINGAPORE stocks opened higher on Monday (Mar 27) as the trio of local banks remained resilient despite the recent woes of Deutsche Bank.

As at 9.01am, the Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.6 per cent or 18.67 points to 3231.31. 

Gainers outnumbered losers 67 to 31, after 23.3 million securities worth S$35.4 million changed hands. 

The most active stock by volume was Sembcorp Marine , which rose by 1.9 per cent or S$0.002 to S$0.106 with 11.3 million securities traded. Jiutian Chemical , another heavily traded stock was down 1.4 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.072, with 2.9 million shares traded.

Banking shares opened higher in early morning trade. DBS rose 0.5 per cent or S$0.15 to S$33.52. UOB was up 0.6 per cent or S$0.16 to S$29.45, while OCBC gained 0.2 per cent or S$0.03 to S$12.39.

Index counter Singtel was up 0.4 per cent or S$0.01 to S$2.39 while Golden Agri-Resources rose 1.7 per cent or S$0.005 to S$0.295.

Meanwhile, Wall Street stocks ended slightly higher on Friday as market sentiment improved afterthe recent turmoil in the financial sector.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average index closed 0.4 per cent higher at 32,237.53, while the broad-based S&P 500 indexes ended the day up 0.6 per cent at 3,970.99. The Nasdaq rose 0.3 per cent on Friday to finish the week at 11,823.96.

In Europe, banking stocks experienced a steep sell-off with Deutsche Bank tumbling as the cost of insuring the German bank’s debt against the risk of default jumped to a more than four-year high.

SEE ALSO

Stocks to watch: Keppel Corp, Far East Hospitality Trust, Sembmarine, Sembcorp Industries, Rex

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index fell 1.4 per cent to 440.11, but still posted a weekly gain supported by a sharp recovery earlier last week.