Singapore shares open lower on Thursday

SINGAPORE shares opened lower on Thursday with the Straits Times Index down 18.13 points, or 0.63 per cent, to 2,880.17 at 9.09 am.

Some 63.1 million shares worth S$54.6 million changed hands with losers outnumbering gainers 93 to 33.

Index heavyweight DBS Bank and Singtel led the decline, shedding S$0.11 and S$0.03 respectively to S$17.36 and S$3.65.

US equities slid and the greenback held close to its strongest level in more than a decade while oil dropped from its highest close in 17 months, Bloomberg reported.

The S&P 500 Index fell 0.84 per cent or 18.96 points to 2,249.92 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 111.36 points to 19,833.68.