Singapore shares open higher on Friday; STI up 0.2%

SINGAPORE stocks opened higher on Friday (Jul 15) morning, even after Wall Street stocks closed mostly lower on Thursday.

The Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.2 per cent or 5.76 points to 3,096.39 as at 9.01 am. Advancers outnumbered decliners 57 to 37 after 35.4 million securities worth S$40.4 million changed hands.

Index stock Genting Singapore was the top traded counter by volume, up 2.7 per cent or S$0.02 at S$0.77 with some 10.1 million shares traded in the morning.

Other heavily traded shares include Asiatic , which was flat at S$0.003 with 2.4 million shares changing hands at the open; Sembcorp Marine , which opened unchanged at S$0.10 with 1.1 million shares traded; and Marco Polo Marine , which was also trading flat at S$0.03 as 1 million shares changed hands.

The trio of local banks were mixed in early trade. As at 9.01 am, DBS inched up 0.03 per cent or S$0.01 to S$29.81 and UOB opened 0.1 per cent or S$0.02 higher at S$26.07. OCBC , meanwhile, was flat at S$11.25.

In the US, Wall Street stocks finished mostly lower on Thursday after another troubling inflation report as bank earnings disappointed, setting a downcast tone about the Q2 earnings season.

But markets rallied somewhat from session lows as some investors grabbed a bargain-hunting opportunity.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.5 per cent or about 140 points to finish at 30,630.17 after falling more than 600 points earlier in the day.

The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.3 per cent to 3,790.38, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index edged up less than 0.1 per cent to 11,251.19.

SEE ALSO

Stocks to watch: Jardine C&C, Innotek, Pavillon

Over in Europe, shares also fell on Thursday, led by commodity and bank stocks. Rising bets on more aggressive rate hikes by the Federal Reserve fed into recession fears while Italy underperformed as the country’s government faced collapse.

The continent-wide Stoxx 600 index ended 1.5 per cent lower, adding to a 1 per cent fall on Wednesday when a hot US inflation spurred bets that the Fed could go for a bigger hike than the 75-basis-point move markets had priced in for this month.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Friday, receiving a tailwind from a cheaper yen against the dollar, with investors shifting their focus to China’s GDP (gross domestic product) data due later in the day.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.39 per cent or 102.62 points at 26,746.01 in early trade, while the broader Topix index edged up 0.18 per cent or 3.46 points to 1,896.59.