Singapore shares rise at Wednesday's open following Wall St rally; STI up 0.1%

Vivienne Tay

Published Wed, Nov 27, 2019 · 01:46 AM

SINGAPORE stocks edged up on Wednesday, recovering somewhat from slight losses the previous day. This comes amid investor hope that an agreement will be struck during the US-China trade talks and rallies on Wall Street.

Singapore's Straits Times Index was up 0.1 per cent or 3.27 points to 3,211.12 as at 9.02am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 60 to 42, after 87.6 million securities worth S$146.4 million changed hands.

The most active counter was Golden Agri-Resources which held steady at 21 Singapore cents with 16.1 million shares changing hands. Other heavily traded securities included Rex International which rose 2.2 per cent or 0.4 Singapore cent to 18.6 cents with 14.0 million shares traded. Mapletree Commercial Trust fell 0.4 per cent or one Singapore cent to S$2.42 with 7.4 million shares traded.

Banking stocks were mixed in early morning trade. DBS fell 0.2 per cent or six Singapore cents at S$25.69; and UOB fell 0.3 per cent or eight cents to S$26.09.

OCBC rose 0.3 per cent or three Singapore cents to S$10.95. The lender on Tuesday said it priced A$500 million (S$463 million) under its US$30 billion global medium term note programme.

Other active index counters included Singtel, which rose 0.3 per cent or one Singapore cent to S$3.29; and CapitaLand Commercial Trust which rose 1.0 per cent or two cents to S$2.00.

In the US, Wall Street continued its rally on Tuesday amid optimism over the US-China trade talks, and Chinese online e-commerce giant Alibaba surging almost 8 per cent on its Hong Kong debut. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were all up 0.2 per cent at close.

In Europe, stocks also rose for the third straight session on Tuesday, also lifted by hopes on a trade truce amid US-China trade talks.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Wednesday on cheaper yen against the dollar and Wall Street rallies and investor focus on US-China trade talks developments.

The Nikkei 225 index rose 0.4 per cent or 93.68 yen to 23,467.00 in early trade, while the Topix index increased 0.32 per cent or 5.43 points at 1,711.14.