Singapore stocks track Wall Street gains after interest rate hike; STI up 0.5%

THE Straits Times Index (STI) gained 15.51 points or 0.5 per cent to close at 3,220.65 points on Thursday (Jul 28), as markets in Asia tracked overnight Wall Street gains after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by an expected 75 basis points.

In the wider Singapore market, gainers outnumbered losers 286 to 175, with 1.1 billion shares worth S$1.08 billion changing hands.

Across the region, Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.4 per cent, South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.8 per cent, the Jakarta composite index rose 0.9 per cent and the Kuala Lumpur composite index climbed 1.4 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index declined 0.2 per cent.

Oanda senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley said on Wednesday that Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell’s statements about potentially slowing the pace of rate hikes may have led to Wall Street’s strong performance overnight, with the broad-based S&P 500 and the Nasdaq finishing 2.6 per cent and 4 per cent higher.

While most regional markets were “duly following suit”, he noted that China risks, US recession risks, European recession risks and rising inflation rates in the region continued to weigh on sentiment.

On the STI, the biggest gainer was Yangzijiang Shipbuilding for the second day in a row, gaining 3.7 per cent or S$0.04 to close at S$0.98.

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Frasers Logistics and Commercial Trust was the most traded counter by volume and the second biggest gainer on the STI, rising 3.7 per cent or S$0.05 to close at S$1.42 after 28.3 million units worth S$39.9 million was traded.

At the bottom of the table was ST Engineering , which shed 1.5 per cent or S$0.06 to close at S$4.04.