Singapore shares open up on Tuesday on record US indices

SINGAPORE stocks opened higher on Tuesday, with the Straits Times Index rising 9.36 points or 0.3 per cent to 3,391.21 as at 9.03am.

About 132.3 million shares worth S$93.2 million in total changed hands.

The most actively traded counter was Sino Cloud, which rose S$0.001 to S$0.002 with 15.5 million shares changing hands. Other actives included Vallianz and Genting Singapore.

Gainers outnumbered losers 101 to 47.

In other areas, US stocks cruised to fresh records for the second straight day on Monday amid a tech sector mega-merger and the opening debate in Congress on a Republican plan for deep corporate tax cuts.

The bluechip Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up less than a tenth of a percentage point at 23,549.1 and the S&P 500 added 0.1 per cent to reach 2,591.13, AFP reported. The tech-rich Nasdaq rose 0.3 per cent to close at 6,786.44 after chipmaker Broadcom made an unsolicited US$103 billion bid for Qualcomm Inc on Monday, sparking a potential transformation of the mobile chip market.

In Tokyo, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.14 per cent, or 30.51 points, to 22,517.84 in early trade while the broader Topix index was down 0.15 per cent, or 2.73 points, at 1,789.93.