Singapore shares rise at Wednesday's open; STI up 0.44% to 3,129.78

SINGAPORE stocks opened higher on Wednesday, with the Straits Times Index heading up 0.44 per cent or 13.61 points to 3,129.78 as at 9.02am, buoyed by strong corporate earnings on Wall Street and news of a deal which will avoid Britain falling out of the European Union.

On the Singapore bourse, gainers outnumbered losers 80 to 33, or about five securities up for every two down, after 53.6 million securities worth S$43.3 million changed hands.

Among the most heavily traded by volume, Rex International Holding moved up 10.1 per cent or S$0.008 to S$0.087 with 18.5 million shares traded. The oilfield services firm had announced on Wednesday that an oil and gas discovery has been made from the drilling of exploration and appraisal wells in the Norwegian Sea.

ESR-Reit increased 1.9 per cent or S$0.01 to S$0.545 with 5.1 million shares traded, while Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings headed up 1.0 per cent or S$0.01 to S$0.98 with 2.3 million shares traded.

Active index stocks included AEM Holdings, up 1.6 per cent or S$0.02 to S$1.25; CapitaLand Commercial Trust, unchanged at S$2.05.

Financials also opened stronger, with OCBC Bank up 0.8 per cent or S$0.09 to S$10.87; DBS Group Holdings up 0.5 per cent or S$0.13 to S$25.07; and United Overseas Bank up 0.4 per cent or S$0.11 to S$26.06.

Elsewhere in the region, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Wednesday, tracking Wall Street rallies. The Nikkei 225 index was up 1.20 per cent or 266.56 points at 22,473.77 in early trade, while the Topix index was up 1.04 per cent or 16.77 points at 1,636.97.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.9 per cent to 27,024.80. The broad-based S&P 500 gained 1.0 per cent to 2,995.68, while the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 1.2 per cent to 8,148.71.

European stocks rose to their highest in nearly three months on Tuesday, charting an almost 3 per cent rise in Irish stocks following a news report which said negotiators were on the verge of a deal that would avoid Britain exiting the European Union. The pan European Stoxx 600 index was up 1.1 per cent, while Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 saw gains of a similar amount.