Singapore shares finish dreary week in the red; STI down 0.6%

LOCAL stocks ended Friday on a dour note, despite the announcement of robust macroeconomic data in the form of Singapore exports rising for the 12th straight month in November, as well as a 24.2 per cent year-on-year rise in non-oil domestic exports.

The benchmark Straits Times Index fell 0.6 per cent or 17.17 points to finish the week at 3,111.63. Decliners outweighed advancers 280 to 188, after 1.2 billion securities worth some S$1.5 billion were traded.

Oanda senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley said that on the whole, the Omicron coronavirus variant "has not caused the global economy to blink yet", but China's problems are still of concern.

"That appears to be because the world is fed up with lockdowns and restrictions, rather than the virus itself. The news from China continues to concern, however. The bottom-pickers buy recommendations are flowing thick and fast on China property companies," he said.

On the local bourse, DBS d05 was the top advancer for the second consecutive day. The stock added 0.3 per cent or S$0.11 to S$32.44.

A few "pandemic plays" - local glovemakers and healthcare-related counters - were also among the biggest gainers.

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Top Glove BVA was up 6.1 per cent or S$0.04 to S$0.70; Medtecs International 546 gained 13.1 per cent or S$0.04 to S$0.345, while UG Healthcare 8K7 rose 14.3 per cent or S$0.04 to S$0.32. Riverstone AP4 , too, rose 3.7 per cent or S$0.025 to S$0.695.

Thinly-traded Shangri-La Asia S07 was the biggest loser of the day, falling 8.6 per cent or HK$0.58 to HK$6.19. Two members of the Jardine group of companies were also among the top decliners. Jardine Cycle and Carriage C07 fell 1.8 per cent or S$0.38 to S$20.82, while Jardine Matheson Holdings J36 lost 0.6 per cent or US$0.32 to US$55.33.

QT Vascular 5i0 was the most heavily traded stock on Friday, with some 124.1 million shares changing hands. The counter closed at S$0.005, down 16.7 per cent or S$0.001.

Other heavily traded counters were Disa Limited 532 , Singtel and ComfortDelGro c52 .

Across Asia, markets ended the day mixed. The KLCI was up 1.2 per cent; the Kospi rose 0.4 per cent, and the Jakarta Composite Index added 0.1 per cent. Meanwhile, the Nikkei 225 fell 1.8 per cent, and the Hang Seng Index lost 1.2 per cent.