Singapore stocks rise at open, tracking Wall Street gains; STI up 1%

SINGAPORE stocks opened higher on Friday, extending their rally from the previous day's close after Wall Street's overnight surge to record highs in the wake of the democratic victory in Georgia.

The Straits Times Index (STI) rose 1 per cent or 28.33 points to 2,935.30 as at 9.01am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 118 to 31 after 91.4 million securities worth S$95.4 million changed hands.

Sembcorp Marine was among the most actively traded counters on Friday morning, with 4.2 million shares worth S$700,000 changing hands. Shares of the marine and offshore engineering group advanced 1.2 per cent or 0.2 Singapore cent at 16.7 cents in early trade.

Also heavily traded was index counter Singtel, which rose 0.4 per cent or S$0.01 to S$2.41.

All three local banks were trading higher as at 9.01am on Friday. DBS was up 1.9 per cent or S$0.50 at S$26.55, UOB gained 1.7 per cent or S$0.39 to hit S$23.59, and OCBC advanced 1.6 per cent or S$0.16 to S$10.48.

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Wall Street stocks surged to fresh records again on Thursday, buoyed by optimism for a better economy in 2021. All three indices finished at new all-time highs just over 12 hours after Congress officially verified the election victory of President-elect Joe Biden.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 0.7 per cent to finish at 31,041.13, its first-ever close above 31,000 points. The broad-based S&P 500 gained 1.5 per cent to end at 3,803.79, while the Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 2.6 per cent to 13,067.48.

In Europe, shares climbed for a second straight session on Thursday. The gains were mainly led by construction stocks as well as commodity-linked shares, which rose on hopes of larger US stimulus after Democrats won Senate control.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Friday to mirror Wall Street, as risk-on investor sentiment continued despite a state of emergency being declared following a jump in new virus cases.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.7 per cent or 198.98 points at 27,689.11 in early trade, while the broader Topix index gained 0.3 per cent or 5.02 points to 1,831.32.