Asian markets generally up, Singapore shares little changed

ASIAN markets cheered the earnings performance from Wall Street titans and the Federal Reserve's status quo in policy rates and asset-purchase programme, but Singapore shares hardly budged on Thursday.

The Straits Times Index was up 0.06 per cent or 2.02 points at 3,221.58 points, though gainers outnumbered losers 262 to 195 across the broad market in which 2.02 billion securities worth S$1.16 billion changed hands.

Jiutian Chemical, which reported a stellar first-quarter net profit that was 30 times that of the preceding year, saw heavy trading of 180.1 million shares. Singapore Exchange market strategist Geoff Howie said the dimethylformamide and methylamine producer was Singapore's most traded Catalist-listed stock so far this year.

He has observed that the stock has had a surge in daily turnover since reporting a strong turnaround profit for the second quarter last year. Before that, the counter was averaging S$150,000 in daily turnover, which has since surged to S$11 million.

Jiutian Chemical closed flat at 10 Singapore cents.

LHN, which announced a property purchase in Geylang to expand its portfolio of co-living assets in Singapore, posted a gain of 10.87 per cent to close at S$0.255.

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BHG Retail Reit shed about 5.17 per cent to S$0.55, although there has not been any recent reported news on the retail real estate investment trust.

Other Asian markets had a better showing, except for South Korea. The Japan and Malaysian markets were closed for a holiday.

The Shanghai Composite Index was 0.52 per cent higher at 3,474.90 points; Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index shot up by 0.80 per cent to 29,303.26 points.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index was 0.25 per cent higher at 7,082.28 points.

South Korea's Kospi Index was 0.23 per cent lower at 3,174.07 points on profit-taking.