Singapore shares slip at Monday’s open; STI down 0.4%
Vivienne Tay
SINGAPORE stocks started the week on a softer note on Monday (Nov 20), led by declines from banks and other index counters.
The Straits Times Index headed down 0.4 per cent or 12.23 points to 3,112.44 as at 9.01 am. Across the broader market, losers outnumbered gainers 61 to 55, after 29.7 million securities worth S$38.6 million changed hands.
The most active counter by volume was Manulife US Reit , which rose 2.1 per cent or US$0.002 to US$0.097, with 3.9 million shares traded.
Other heavily traded securities included Seatrium , which was up 0.9 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.108, as well as Singtel , which lost 0.4 per cent or S$0.01 to S$2.32.
On Monday morning, Singtel announced the resignation of Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin. The move came weeks after a network-wide outage left over 10 million customers without phone or Internet services for 12 hours.
Banking stocks were in the red during early trading. DBS fell 0.7 per cent or S$0.22 to S$32.47, UOB lost 0.4 per cent or S$0.10 to S$27.25, while OCBC declined 0.5 per cent or S$0.06 to S$12.91.
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Other active index counters included the Singapore Exchange , which slid 1.1 per cent or S$0.10 to S$9.44, and ST Engineering , which was down 2.1 per cent or S$0.08 to S$3.79.
In the US, stocks finished Friday in positive territory, as major indices secured a third consecutive week of gains amid expectations that the Federal Reserve would not raise interest rates further.
The broad-based S&P 500 closed 0.1 per cent higher at 4,514.02, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose less than 0.1 per cent at 34,947.28. The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.1 per cent at 14,125.48.
European shares also ended the week higher, supported by financial and healthcare stocks. The pan-European Stoxx 600 rose 1 per cent, finishing the week 2.8 per cent higher, as bond yields fell.
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