Singapore stocks rise on Wednesday; STI up 0.2%

[SINGAPORE] Stocks on the Singapore bourse ended higher on Wednesday (Mar 26), tracking gains in the region and overnight on Wall Street.

The benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.2 per cent or 9.18 points to end at 3,963.71. Across the broader market, gainers outnumbered losers 261 to 223, after one billion securities worth S$1.2 billion changed hands.

The top gainer on the STI was ST Engineering , which rose 1.7 per cent or S$0.11 to S$6.67.

The top decliner was Singapore Exchange (SGX), falling 1.4 per cent or S$0.18 to S$13.15.

The local banks saw mixed trading. DBS was up 0.7 per cent or S$0.34 at S$46.39, and OCBC gained 0.3 per cent or S$0.06 to S$17.25, while UOB fell 0.1 per cent or S$0.05 to S$37.85.

Key indices in the region closed higher. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 0.6 per cent, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.7 per cent, South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.1 per cent, and the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI closed 0.3 per cent higher.

US stocks cautiously extended their recovery on Tuesday as a slew of weaker-than-expected economic data prints weighed on Treasury yields, dialling up slowdown risks, said Jose Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers.

Equities also rose cautiously as dismal data pushed borrowing costs south, offering breathing room to valuations, he added.

Meanwhile, data released on Wednesday showed that Singapore’s manufacturing output fell 1.3 per cent year on year in February, breaking its seven-month expansion streak after the biomedical and electronics clusters fell into contraction.

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This missed private-sector economists’ forecasts of a 7 per cent expansion, in a poll by Bloomberg. February’s data was also a sharp reversal from January’s revised growth of 8 per cent.

Economists expect that manufacturers could turn more cautious, given a broadening trade war and uncertainties over US tariffs, although they do not believe that Singapore will be directly affected.