Singapore shares rise at Monday's open; up 0.31%

SINGAPORE stocks opened slightly higher on Monday tracking gains in Tokyo amid news that China's November factory activity rebounded for the first time in seven months.

Singapore's Straits Times Index headed up 0.31 per cent or 9.87 points to 3,203.79 as at 9.16am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 101 to 46, after 93.3 million securities worth S$129.9 million changed hands.

The most active counter was Singtel, which rose 2.1 per cent, or seven Singapore cents to S$3.45 with 12.9 million shares changing hands as at 9.10am. Other heavily traded securities included ThaiBev which rose 1.1 per cent or one Singapore cent to S$0.90 with 8.3 million shares traded, as well as Golden Agri-Resources which fell 2.3 per cent or 0.5 cent to S$0.21 with four million shares traded.

Banking stocks rose in early morning trade. DBS was trading up 0.1 per cent or two Singapore cents at S$25.27 as at 9.10am. UOB was up 0.3 per cent or eight cents to S$25.90, while OCBC rose 0.2 per cent, or two Singapore cents to S$10.80.

Other active index counters included Ascendas Reit which was down 0.3 per cent or one Singapore cent at S$2.97, and AEM which moved up 1.1 per cent or two cents to S$1.82 as at 9.10am.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Monday following weekend data on China's November factory activity rebounding for the first time in seven months, despite uncertainty over US-China trade talks.

The Nikkei 225 index gained 0.43 per cent to 23,394.82 in early trade, while the Topix index was up 0.41 per cent at 1,706.36.