Singapore shares close slightly higher after rise in Dow futures, Europe

THE Straits Times Index (STI) on Thursday finished with a rise of 16.27 points at 2,562.45 thanks mainly to an afternoon push that came when the Dow futures rose 120 points and Europe opened in the black.

Turnover was below average at 745 million units worth S$901 million and, excluding warrants, there were 187 rises versus 192 falls.

Among the few features of note was a S$0.09 or 6.5 per cent collapse in Singapore Post (SingPost) shares to S$1.30 on volume of 31 million. The counter has now plunged S$0.155 or 10.6 per cent in two days, on Thursday drawing a noon query from Singapore Exchange (SGX).

SingPost has been in the news recently because of various governance concerns, and it recently appointed its external auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct a special audit to address those concerns.

The market's latest entrant, security specialist Secura Group, did not enjoy a particularly distinguished debut on Catalist when it closed at S$0.225 versus its offer price of S$0.25. A total of 30.4 million shares were traded, making it the day's fourth most active counter.

Elsewhere, the collapse in shares of offshore and marine firm EMS Energy continued when the counter crashed S$0.12 or 55 per cent to S$0.10 on volume of 5.5 million.

The stock had lost S$0.08 or 27 per cent on Wednesday, drawing an SGX query, to which the company replied that it did not know of reasons for the fall. In two days, EMS Energy has lost 67 per cent for reasons unknown.