Singapore shares fall at Wednesday's open; STI down 0.4%

SINGAPORE stocks opened weaker on Wednesday following overnight losses on Wall Street and weaker openings among index counters.

Singapore's Straits Times Index (STI) headed down 0.4 per cent or 10.83 points to 2,502.04 as at 9.03am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 65 to 60, after 68.3 million securities worth S$52.3 million changed hands.

The most active counter by volume was Jiutian Chemical, which rose 2.4 per cent or 0.2 Singapore cent to 8.4 cents, with 11.4 million shares traded.

Other heavily traded securities included Rex International, which was up 4.6 per cent or 0.6 Singapore cent to 13.7 cents, with 8.1 million shares traded, as well as Aspen (Group) Holdings, which gained 1.8 per cent or 0.5 Singapore cent to 28 cents, with 3.2 million shares changing hands.

Banking stocks were in the red during early morning trade. DBS lost 0.9 per cent or S$0.19 to S$21.13, UOB declined 0.7 per cent or S$0.13 to S$19.15, while OCBC dropped 0.8 per cent or S$0.07 to S$8.60.

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Other active index counters included Venture, which advanced 0.7 per cent or S$0.13 to S$20.27 and the Singapore Exchange, which was down 0.1 per cent or S$0.01 to S$9.07.

In the US, stocks finished mostly lower on Tuesday amid worries over the economy and Covid-19, as well as lacklustre consumer data and mixed earnings.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.8 per cent to 27,463.19. The broad-based S&P 500 declined 0.3 per cent to 3,390.68, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.6 per cent to 11,431.35.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened lower on Wednesday after Wall Street's losses, with the yen's appreciation also weighing on the market. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.5 per cent to 23,374.28 in early trade, while the broader Topix index lost 0.7 per cent to 1,606.61.