Singapore stocks open higher on Thursday amid rally in banks; STI up 0.6%

SINGAPORE shares rose in early trade on Thursday, buoyed by significant upward movements from the trio of local banks.

The Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.6 per cent or 19.04 points to 3,160.79 as at 9.01am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 89 to 31, after 35.4 million securities worth S$69.4 million changed hands.

In the first minute of trade, OCBC O39 was up 1.4 per cent or S$0.17 to S$12.24, UOB U11 rose 1.1 per cent or S$0.28 to S$26.20, while DBS D05 gained 0.6 per cent or S$0.19 to S$30.26.

READ MORE: Hot stock: Singapore banks up as investors react to MAS lifting of dividend restrictions

Samudera Shipping S56 saw active trading on Thursday morning on the back of its earnings announcement, with its share price jumping 7.1 per cent or three Singapore cents to 45.5 cents. Some 950,000 shares changed hands within the first minute of trade.

GKE Corp 595 was the most traded counter by volume in the first minute of market open, with 7.5 million shares changing hands. The counter edged up 0.6 per cent or 0.1 Singapore cent to 16 cents.

Among index counters, ComfortDelGro C52 saw heavy trading on Thursday morning, rising S$0.02 or 1.3 per cent to S$1.61, after 2.1 million shares worth S$3.3 million were traded.

In the US, stocks were mixed on Wall Street as investors digested a slew of mostly positive earnings reports and a Federal Reserve decision that appeared to maintain its accommodative monetary policy.

Despite mostly strong earnings reports from giants in tech, F&B and aviation, several big names declined, suggesting investor belief that growth will be tough to sustain, with most of the good news already priced in.

Meanwhile, the Fed offered little clarity on whether or when stimulus measures for the economy would be reduced.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 0.4 per cent lower at 34,930.93, the broad-based S&P 500 was flat at 4,400.64, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.7 per cent to 14,762.58.

European stocks gained on Wednesday as encouraging earnings reports from British bank Barclays and luxury group Kering helped investors look past worries about China's regulatory crackdown that kept markets on edge this week. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index closed 0.7 per cent higher after two sessions of declines.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Thursday as investors took heart from gains in US high-tech shares after the Fed decided against major changes to its monetary policy. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.6 per cent or 172.6 points at 27,754.26 in early trade, while the broader Topix index advanced 0.5 per cent or 9.82 points to 1,929.47.