STI slips 0.3% as China property sector appears to weigh on regional sentiment

CHINA'S property sector and the world's most leveraged property player Evergrande appeared to be weighing on sentiment in Asia, noted an analyst, as Singapore's blue-chip barometer Straits Times Index (STI) ended lower on Thursday (Oct 21).

STI dropped 9.58 points or 0.3 per cent to 3,188.50 points, after recovering some lost ground in the last trading hour.

Oanda senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley said the Hong Kong-listed Evergrande and the China property sector appeared to have affected investor sentiment in the region, while an overnight weak Nasdaq performance had a negative impact on the closely correlated North Asian heavyweights.

UOB, OCBC and DBS all closed lower, as with over a dozen of STI stocks that ended in the red.

Malaysian glove maker Top Glove came onto the radar of investors when its Malaysia-listed rival Supermax became the latest to be banned by the United States for alleged forced labour practices at the company, although such a ban on Top Glove's products was recently lifted. Nevertheless, Top Glove price tumbled 2.19 per cent to S$0.895.

Builder King Wan was the most traded stock when the market closed, with its price having risen 11.77 per cent to S$0.057 amid a turnover of over 176.3 million shares. It recently announced a joint venture that would mainly provide retrofitting and upgrading solutions, as well as system integration services for buildings and facilities, using Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things.

Decliners beat gainers marginally 240 to 236 on the broader market, on a turnover of S$964.14 million over 1.9 billion securities.

Markets in Asia closed mainly down.