Singapore shares retreat at Tuesday's open; STI down 0.1%

SINGAPORE shares opened in negative territory on Tuesday to mirror overnight declines on Wall Street, as higher yields on 10-year Treasury notes prompted concerns over potentially higher inflation and interest rates in the US.

The Straits Times Index (STI) fell 0.1 per cent or 2.85 points to 2,878.36 as at 9.01am.

Losers slightly outnumbered gainers 66 to 65, after 136.8 million securities worth S$68.3 million changed hands.

The most active counter by volume was Thomson Medical, which shed 0.3 Singapore cent or 2.7 per cent to 10.7 cents after 21.3 million shares worth S$2.3 million changed hands.

Other actively traded stocks include Sembcorp Marine, which fell 0.2 Singapore cent or 1.3 per cent to 15 cents after 11.3 million of its shares worth S$1.7 million were traded. This comes after the marine and offshore engineering group announced that its net loss for the second half had widened to S$390.4 million from S$130.3 million a year ago.

Among the index securities, Thai Beverage lost S$0.01 or 1.4 per cent in early trade to S$0.73.

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DBS was the sole share price gainer out of the trio of banks on Tuesday morning, rising S$0.07 or 0.3 per cent to S$25.67. UOB and OCBC were both flat at S$23.69 and S$10.63 respectively.

Wall Street largely retreated on Monday with tech stocks taking the biggest hit amid growing concerns that borrowing rates will creep higher as the US economy - and prices - recover.

The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average reversed early losses to close with a gain of less than 0.1 per cent at 31,521.69. The broad-based S&P 500 fell about 0.8 per cent to finish at 3,876.5, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index was the big loser, dropping 2.5 per cent to 13,533.05.

Over in Europe, shares trimmed early losses on Monday as comments from the region's central bank brought down treasury yields, though inflation expectations and profit-taking in technology stocks dragged the benchmark index lower.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index settled 0.4 per cent down after dropping as much as 1 per cent, led by declines in technology companies and retail stocks.

Financial markets in Japan were closed on Tuesday for a public holiday.