Singapore stocks rise at open, tracking Wall Street rally; STI up 0.5%

SINGAPORE shares rose in early trade on Wednesday, as a rally on Wall Street helped to lift sentiment which had been dampened by the re-tightening of Covid-19 restrictions in the Republic.

The Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.5 per cent or 14.91 points to 3,126.11 as at 9.01am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 99 to 55, after 65.64 million securities worth S$92.2 million changed hands.

Marco Polo Marine 5LY shares were among the most actively traded securities by volume on Wednesday morning, with eight million shares changing hands as at 9.01am. The counter traded flat at 2.7 Singapore cents.

Among index counters, Singtel Z74 was the most heavily traded counter, rising 0.9 per cent or S$0.02 to S$2.26, with 3.6 million shares traded as at 9.01am.

Sanli Environmental 1E3 was also among the top five actively traded counters in terms of volume. The counter jumped 7.5 per cent or 1.4 Singapore cents to 20 cents, with 2.3 million shares changing hands.

The trio of local banks were also trading higher on Wednesday morning. DBS D05 gained 0.9 per cent or S$0.27 to S$29.85, OCBC O39 rose 0.7 per cent or S$0.08 to S$11.94, while UOB U11 was up 0.5 per cent or S$0.12 to S$25.81.

In the US, Wall Street stocks staged a rebound on Tuesday, after worries about a rocky recovery for the US economy dragged the market to the worst session of the year on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1.6 per cent higher at 34,511.99 on Tuesday, the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 1.6 per cent to finish at 14,498.87, while the broad-based S&P 500 climbed 1.5 per cent to 4,323.06.

European stocks stabilised on Tuesday, helped by a handful of positive corporate earnings and production updates from miners. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index rose 0.5 per cent to 446.61, after the worst sell-off this year in the previous session. Worries about the fast-spreading Delta coronavirus variant and slowing economic growth knocked 2.3 per cent off the index on Monday.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Wednesday ahead of a long weekend. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 1.3 per cent or 362.87 points at 27,751.03 in early trade, while the broader Topix index climbed 1.2 per cent or 23.03 points to 1,911.92.