Singapore shares edge up slightly on Tuesday; STI up 0.05%

SINGAPORE shares edged slightly higher on Tuesday, with the Straits Times Index rising 0.05 per cent, or 1.48 points to 3,223.92 as at 9.01am.

Decliners outnumbered advancers 60 to 36, after about 55.5 million shares worth S$116.3 million changed hands.

Among the most heavily traded by volume, Singtel slipped 0.3 per cent, or one Singapore cent to S$3.37, with 3.3 million shares changing hands. This comes after Grab Holdings and Singtel on Monday made public their joint application for a digital full bank licence.

Meanwhile, Mermaid Maritime lost 8.6 per cent, or 1.3 Singapore cents to 13.8 cents, with some 2.9 million shares traded. The oil and gas play on Tuesday said its associate has secured contract extensions worth US$199 million for two of its jack-up drilling rigs. The counter jumped 31.3 per cent to close at 15.1 Singapore cents overnight, prompting a query from the Singapore bourse on Monday afternoon.

Separately, financials were mixed in the early morning trade. DBS slipped 0.2 per cent, or five Singapore cents to S$25.78, United Overseas Bank gained 0.4 per cent, or 10 Singapore cents to S$26.38, and OCBC Bank added 0.2 per cent, or two Singapore cents to S$10.95.

Other active index stocks included CapitaLand Mall Trust which lost 0.8 per cent, or two Singapore cents to S$2.43, while Singapore Airlines gained 0.7 per cent, or six Singapore cents to S$9.10.

Over in the US, the "Santa rally" lost some steam as investors locked in their year-end gains. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 lost 0.6 per cent each, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.7 per cent.

Elsewhere in Asia, Australian stocks fell 0.9 per cent in the early morning trade, while Hang Seng Index futures fell 0.4 per cent, data from Bloomberg shows.