Singapore stocks rise at Monday's open; STI up 0.9%

SINGAPORE stocks rose in early trade on Monday (Nov 1), tracking gains from Wall Street indices.

The Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.9 per cent or 27.93 points to 3,226.1 as at 9.01 am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 106 to 38 after 85.01 million securities worth S$68.3 million changed hands.

Hatten Land shares were among the most actively traded securities on Monday morning, with 27.5 million shares changing hands as at 9.00 am. The counter rose 18.6 per cent or S$0.011 to S$0.07.

SPH was the top gainer on Monday morning, rising 7.5 per cent or S$0.15 to S$2.14 as at 9.00am.

Shares of ThaiBev were also among the top five actively traded counters in terms of volume. Its shares were up 1.4 per cent or S$0.01 to S$0.72 as at 9.00 am.

The trio of local banks were also trading higher on Monday morning. DBS was up 1.3 per cent or S$0.41 to S$31.94, UOB rose 0.8 per cent or S$0.22 to S$26.97, while OCBC increased 1.3 per cent or S$0.15 to S$11.95 as at 9.00 am

In the US, Wall Street stocks finished a buoyant October with a flourish on Friday (Oct 29) as major indices reached all-time highs despite disappointing results from Amazon and Apple.

All three major indices ended at records, with the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.3 per cent at 35,819.56. The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.2 per cent to reach 4,605.38, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.3 per cent to close at 15,498.39.

European equities ended flat on Friday (Oct 29) as a jump in major financial stocks driven by surging bond yields offset weakness in high dividend-yielding sectors and commodity companies reeling from a slide in oil and metal prices.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index closed 0.1 per cent higher. But it notched a gain of 4.6 per cent in October, marking its best month in 7 and recouping all of September's losses as strong-third quarter earnings reports drew in investors.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo's key Nikkei 225 index opened more than two per cent higher on Monday as investors cheered general election results showing a victory for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 2.1 per cent or 617.39 points at 29,510.08 in early trade, while the broader Topix index was up 1.5 per cent or 30.11 points at 2,031.29.