Singapore shares rise at open after US Fed's half-point hike; STI up 0.6%

SINGAPORE stocks rose in early trade on Thursday (May 5) tracking overnight gains on Wall Street after the US Federal Reserve announced a half-point hike, the biggest since 2000. US stock markets cheered the Fed move, closing sharply higher, with big gains in interest-sensitive tech shares. On the Singapore bourse, the Straits Times Index (STI) headed up 0.6 per cent or 19.91 points to 3,369.18 as at 9.02 am. Gainers outnumbered losers 108 to 33, after 133.8 million securities worth S$96.6 million changed hands. The most active counter by volume was Jiutian Chemical , which rose 4.3 per cent, or S$0.004 to S$0.098, with 38.2 million shares changing hands. Sembcorp Marine rose 1 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.104, with 18 million shares traded, while Dyna-Mac Holdings rose 0.7 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.149 with 8.9 million shares traded. Banking stocks also rose in early morning trade. DBS was trading 0.8 per cent or S$0.27 higher at S$34.32, UOB rose 0.7 per cent or S$0.21 to S$30.45, while OCBC rose 0.9 per cent or S$0.11 to S$12.43. Other active index counters included Singapore Telecommunications which fell 0.4 per cent or S$0.01 to S$2.75, and Mapletree Logistics Trust , which rose 0.6 per cent or S$0.01 to S$1.76. On Wall Street, stock markets rallied after the Fed announced a large 50 basis point interest rate increase. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 2.8 per cent higher at 34,061.06. The broad-based S&P500 climbed 3 per cent to close at 4,300.17, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 3.2 per cent to 12,964.86. Meanwhile in Europe, stocks dropped on Wednesday, weighed by disappointing earnings and investor jitters ahead of the policy decision by the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index dropped 1.1 per cent, and most regional indices were also in negative territory.