Singapore stocks end week in red; STI down 0.3%

SINGAPORE shares ended a shortened trading week – due to a mid-week public holiday – with losses on Friday (Apr 12), after Singapore’s central bank left its monetary policy settings unchanged for the month.

The benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) fell 0.3 per cent or 10.7 points to close at 3,216.91.

Across the broader market, decliners outnumbered advancers 325 to 256, with 1.5 billion securities worth S$893.1 million changing hands.

The biggest gainer on the STI was consumer conglomerate Jardine Cycle & Carriage : C07 0% which climbed 0.7 per cent or S$0.19 to S$26.90.

The biggest decliner on the index was shipbuilding company Seatrium : S51 0%, which fell 3.6 per cent or S$0.003 to S$0.081. It was also the most actively traded counter by volume, with 291.2 million shares worth S$24.1 million traded.

Most regional bourses were also in the red on Friday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 2.2 per cent, while South Korea’s Kospi dipped 0.9 per cent. Australia’s ASX 200 dropped 0.3 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei 225, however, rose 0.2 per cent, bucking the regional trend.

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Their performance comes as key inflation data from the US earlier this week showed that its consumer prices in March were up 0.4 per cent from February and 3.5 per cent from the year prior, both slightly above the expected level.

In light of the data, Barnabas Gan, RHB’s head of market research and acting group chief economist, said that he does not expect US core inflation to touch 2 per cent by the end of the year.

“We keep US full-year headline inflation at 3 per cent, with upside risks towards 3.2 per cent, thus suggesting that inflation will continue to persist in the year ahead,” said Gan.

He expects the US Federal Reserve to conduct two rate cuts in the second half of this year, by 25 basis points each.