Singapore shares resume Friday afternoon trading, slide 1.7% on day

SINGAPORE stocks dived when trading resumed Friday afternoon, with the Straits Times Index down 1.7 per cent or 52.47 points on the day to 2,965.80 as at 1.03pm.

Decliners outnumbered advancers 322 to 101, with about 681 million securities worth S$801.8 million changing hands.

Among the most heavily traded by volume as at 1.04pm, Rex International fell 2.8 per cent or 0.5 Singapore cent to 17.7 cents, with 35.6 million shares traded. Yangzijiang Shipbuilding rose 3.5 per cent or S$0.03 to S$0.89, with 33.6 million shares traded.

Genting Singapore fell 3.2 per cent or 2.5 Singapore cents to 76.5 cents, on a trade of 26.6 million shares. 

Banking stocks also slumped by the afternoon trade as at 1.04pm. DBS tumbled 2.5 per cent or S$0.58 to S$23.02, UOB fell 2.1 per cent or S$0.50 to S$23.24, while OCBC lost 2.1 per cent or S$0.22 to S$10.20. All three lenders are trading on a cum-dividend basis. 

Other active securities included Singtel, which dropped 1 per cent or S$0.03 to S$2.96 as at 1.04pm. The telco on Friday disclosed that one of its employees was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus on Thursday night.

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Ascendas Real Estate Investment Trust shed 1.2 per cent or S$0.04 to S$3.41 as at 1.04pm. 

Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, South Korean shares fell on Friday with investors spooked by soaring virus cases in the United States and around the world despite efforts to contain the novel coronavirus outbreak. As at 0223 GMT, Seoul stock market's main Kospi index fell 50.82 points or 2.4 per cent to 2,034.44.