Singapore stocks open lower on Tuesday; STI down 0.6%

SINGAPORE shares opened lower on Tuesday, tracking Wall Street's overnight decline as tech shares weighed on the broader market.

The Straits Times Index (STI) fell 0.6 per cent or 19.90 points to 3,162.51 as at 9.01am. Losers outnumbered gainers 95 to 71, after 127 million securities worth S$128.6 million changed hands.

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding was the second-most actively traded stock on the exchange in the morning. The index counter lost S$0.01 or 0.7 per cent to S$1.51, after some 13.6 million shares worth S$20.4 million changed hands.

Meanwhile, Genting Singapore slipped half a Singapore cent or 0.6 per cent to 83.5 cents at the open, with about 2.8 million shares traded.

Healthcare player Thomson Medical also saw brisk trading activity in the morning, with 2.3 million shares changing hands. It gained 0.1 Singapore cent or 1.1 per cent to 8.9 cents as at 9.01am.

Banking stocks were in the red at Tuesday's open. DBS shed S$0.10 or 0.3 per cent to S$29.53, UOB was down S$0.09 or 0.3 per cent at S$26.45, while OCBC fell S$0.18 or 1.4 per cent to S$12.39.

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Wall Street indices ran out of steam on Monday as the Dow snapped a three-day streak of records and the Nasdaq tumbled on weakness in technology shares.

The Dow ended down slightly by 0.1 per cent at 34,742.82 after topping 35,000 points for the first time earlier in the session, while the Nasdaq closed 2.6 per cent lower at 13,401.86 as investors rotated out of technology names to companies more connected to the economic recovery. The broad-based S&P 500 declined 1 per cent to close at 4,188.43.

European stocks hit record highs on Monday after commodity prices surged, and optimism about the reopening of economies and easy monetary policy lifted sectors that typically benefit from a recovery. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index edged up 0.1 per cent to end at an all-time high, with miners rallying 2.3 per cent.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened lower on Tuesday, following declines on Wall Street. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.9 per cent or 277.63 points at 29,240.71 in early trade, while the broader Topix index lost 0.6 per cent or 12.59 points to 1,939.68.