Singapore stocks decline at Monday's open; STI down 0.6%

SINGAPORE shares started the week on lower ground, with the Straits Times Index falling 19.03 points or 0.6 per cent to 3,162 as at 9.01am on Monday.

Losers outnumbers gainers 145 to 42, after 99.2 million securities worth S$102.5 million changed hands.

Among the most heavily traded was Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, which lost S$0.03 or 2.9 per cent to S$1.01 on 7.1 million shares traded as at 9.03am. ComfortDelGro shed S$0.03 or 1.5 per cent to S$1.99, after 2.4 million shares changed hands.

The trio of banks began the morning in the red. DBS was down S$0.15 or 0.6 per cent to S$24.93, OCBC Bank fell S$0.05 or 0.5 per cent to S$10.97, while United Overseas Bank tumbled S$0.37 or 1.4 per cent to S$25.31.

Other active index counters included Singtel which rose S$0.01 or 0.3 per cent to S$3.11.

CapitaLand was down S$0.03 or 0.8 per cent to S$3.67. The real estate giant on Monday morning said it will release one month's worth of security deposits to offset its mall tenants' rental payments for March 2020, while the virus outbreak is ongoing.

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Singapore Press Holdings dropped S$0.03 or 1.5 per cent to S$1.98. The media and property group on Monday announced it will acquire five aged care assets in Japan for 5.26 billion yen (S$65.8 million).

ST Engineering gained S$0.03 or 0.7 per cent to S$4.27 as at 9.03am. This came after the group reported a 36.2 per cent rise in its fourth-quarter net profit to S$169.5 million on Monday morning.