Singapore shares end off intraday highs, fall 22 points

SINGAPORE shares ended off their intraday highs, as investors adopted a wait-and-see stance after recent sell-offs.

The benchmark Straits Times Index opened at 3,445.83, before settling at 3,383.77, down 22.61 points, or 0.66 per cent. More than 2.6 billion shares, worth S$2.2 billion, changed hands. There were 258 gainers to 256 losers.

The three local banks - DBS, UOB and OCBC - closed lower, ahead of their corporate results. Bucking the trend was Singtel, which closed at S$3.44, up two Singapore cents, on more than 50 million shares traded.

Singapore Exchange (SGX), too, bucked the downtrend to end at S$8.01, up 13 Singapore cents, or 1.65 per cent. On Tuesday, regulators from Singapore and Malaysia said they would work together to get a stock market trading link between Bursa Malaysia and SGX operational by end-2018.