Singapore stocks fall at Thursday's open; STI down 0.2%

SINGAPORE stocks were back in red on Thursday morning (Jan 20) after US shares closed lower on Wednesday.

The Straits Times Index (STI) dropped 0.2 per cent or 7.63 points to 3,276.31 as at 9.03 am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 66 to 58 after 78.3 million securities worth S$91.6 million changed hands.

One of the most active counters by volume was Beverly JCG VFP : VFP 0%; shares of the company were down 50 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.001 with 16.1 million shares changing hands.

Other heavily traded securities include Jiutian Chemical C8R and Disa 532. : 532 0% Jiutian Chemical traded up 1.2 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.084 in early trade on Thursday, while Disa climbed up 12.5 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.009.

Vividthree OMK : OMK 0%was also among the most actively traded securities, following the announcement that the production company has entered into an exclusive 2-year partnership with JVS Management for Filecoin mining. Vividthree traded flat at S$0.059 as at 9.03 am.

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The trio of local banks were mixed on Thursday morning. UOB U11was up 0.3 per cent or S$0.10 to S$29.99, while shares of both DBS and OCBC tumbled. DBS D05was down 0.9 per cent or S$0.33 to S$35.60, while OCBC O39 : O39 0%dropped 0.4 per cent or S$0.05 to S$12.18.

Over on Wall Street, US shares ended sharply lower on Wednesday after a diverse set of corporate earnings and as investors continue to worry over higher US Treasury yields and the Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1 per cent or 339.82 points to 35,028.65, the S&P 500 lost 1 per cent or 44.35 points to 4,532.76 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.2 per cent or 166.64 points to 14,340.26.

The tech-rich Nasdaq index fell 10.7 per cent from its closing record high on Nov 19 and confirmed it was in a correction.

Meanwhile, European shares ended higher on Wednesday after positive earnings from the luxury goods sector and strong commodity prices helped investors momentarily look past concerns over rising interest rates. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index ended 0.2 per cent up after falling 1 per cent on Tuesday.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo shares were mixed at Thursday's open. The benchmark Nikkei 225 was down 0.2 per cent or 42.90 points to 27,424.33 in early trade, while the broader Topix index gained 0.1 per cent or 2.18 points to 1,921.90.