Singapore shares fall 1.6 per cent due to further Western sanctions on Russia

SINGAPORE stocks declined on Monday (Feb 28) as further Western sanctions were imposed on Russia following its attack on Ukraine.

The benchmark Straits Times Index ended down 1.6 per cent or 52.23 points at 3,242.24. Across the broader market, decliners outnumbered advancers 277 to 224 after 1.72 billion shares worth S$3.01 billion changed hands.

IG market strategist Yeap Jun Rong said that renewed risk-off sentiment could have been spurred by tougher sanctions imposed by the West on Russia. This includes the exclusion of Russia's financial institutions from the SWIFT network, which would block Russia's central bank from using its international reserves to blunt the impact of sanctions.

"For now, the exclusion of Russia's banks from the SWIFT system is carefully limited to selected banks so as to not impact Russia's supply of oil and gas to Europe, but the uncertainty will be whether Russia will restrict these exports as a retaliatory move." he said.

However, Singapore was an outlier in the region. Apart from Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index, which declined 0.2 per cent, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.2 per cent while South Korea's Kospi rose 0.8 per cent. The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index climbed 1 per cent.

Among the STI's counters, DBS D05 led the index's decline as it fell 3.2 per cent or S$1.13 to close at S$33.82. UOB U11 fell 2.2 per cent or S$0.66 to close at S$29.91, while OCBC O39 fe ll 1.5 per cent or S$0.18 to close at S$11.67.

At the top of the table was ST Engineering S63 , which climbed 1.3 per cent or S$0.05 to close at S$3.82.

Other hotly traded counters include Singtel Z74, which closed down 3.1 per cent or S$0.08 at S$2.52 and CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust C38U , which fell 0.5 per cent or S$0.01 to close at S$2.11.