Singapore stocks rise at Thursday's open; STI up 0.3%

SINGAPORE shares opened higher on Thursday, tracking Wall Street gains overnight.

The Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.3 per cent or 8.80 points to 3,162.39 as at 9.03am.

Advancers outnumbered losers 79 to 37, after 57.5 million securities worth S$78.1 million changed hands.

Gold production and mining company Anchor Resources was the most actively traded counter by volume, with 16.2 million securities traded as at 9.03am. The counter gained 10.4 per cent or 0.3 Singapore cent to 3.2 cents.

Among index counters, the top gainer was CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust. The counter rose 1.4 per cent or S$0.03 to S$2.12. Hongkong Land was the top loser, with the counter falling 0.8 per cent or US$0.04 to US$4.80 as at 9.04am.

The trio of local banks were mixed in early trade. DBS was up 0.8 per cent or S$0.22 to S$29.57, OCBC advanced 0.6 per cent or S$0.07 to S$12.27, while UOB dipped 0.3 per cent or S$0.07 to S$26.23.

Over on Wall Street, stocks finished mostly higher after data showed solid private-sector hiring and rising activity in the service industry. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.3 per cent to 34,230.21, setting a new all-time high. The broad-based S&P 500 edged up 0.1 per cent to 4,167.63, but the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index retreated 0.4 per cent to 13,582.42.

Over in Europe, stocks marked their best day in nearly two months on Wednesday, recovering from a sharp sell-off in the previous session as resource shares hit a 10-year high. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index ended 1.8 per cent higher at 441.55.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened higher on Thursday, following a generally strong performance on Wall Street. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.7 per cent or 214.29 points at 29,026.92 in early trade, while the broader Topix index jumped 1.1 per cent or 20.96 points to 1,919.20.