STI falls 0.16%, Opec+ deal fails to lift sentiment

The Straits Times Index ended Monday down 4.07 points or 0.16 per cent at 2,567.25 points.

Decliners outnumbered advancers 204 to 178 for the day, with 789.43 million shares worth S$713.63 million changing hands.

There was less demand for equities in Asia on Monday, given that traders are still erring on the side of caution as "markets will have a lot to tussle with over the week ahead", said Stephen Innes, AxiCorp's chief global markets strategist.

This includes the upcoming earnings season that kicks off this week, which may give investors to "get a better sense of how bad the hit to global profits" wrought by the virus outbreak could be, said a report by OCBC Investment Research. Among other key figures that investors are looking out for is China's first-quarter gross domestic product figures.

Benchmarks elsewhere in Asia were mostly down with China, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea posting losses.

This comes despite the historic Opec+ deal to slash production by 9.7 million barrels, with investors being more focused on the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic, said market watchers.

Close to half of the STI's constituents ended in the red, with Mapletree Logistics Trust emerging at the bottom, falling S$0.07 or 4.07 per cent to S$1.65.

The best performer was Yangzijiang Shipbuilding which gained S$0.02 or 2.17 per cent to S$0.94.

Meanwhile, the most heavily traded stock was Singtel, which edged up S$0.03 or 1.11 per cent to S$2.74.

The trio of banking stocks were down in the early session of trading, but DBS and UOB built on gains by late morning to end in the black, gaining S$0.14 or 0.73 per cent to S$19.28, and S$0.01 or 0.05 per cent to S$20.18 respectively. On the other hand, OCBC Bank fell S$0.03 or 0.34 per cent to S$8.92.

The Straits Times reported on Monday that banks have received increasing numbers of applications to defer payments or seek assistance to cope with the economic fallout from the pandemic.