STI up 0.89%; DBS and OCBC at 52-week highs

SINGAPORE and regional indexes performed well on Wednesday, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index outdoing its peers with a 2.7 per cent gain.

Singapore's blue-chip barometer the Straits Times Index (STI) rose 26.5 points or 0.89 per cent to 3,000.37, while gainers outnumbered decliners 251 to 229 in the broader market.

The STI saw DBS and OCBC hitting their 52-week highs at S$27.48 and S$11.25 respectively, up 2 per cent and 1.53 per cent. UOB, by contrast, was only two Singapore cents shy of reaching its 52-week high at S$25.34.

GS Holdings closed up about 25.58 per cent to S$0.54, making it one of the better performers. This came despite the food and beverage player reporting a 62 per cent drop in revenue to S$13.6 million for continuing operations and a 95 per cent plunge in profits for last year to S$694,000.

Mainboard-listed company Oceanus Group was the most-heavily traded stock with a trading volume of 1.33 billion shares, against a turnover of 3.23 billion securities worth S$1.47 billion for the broader market. The unusual price movements of the watch-listed seafood and fast-moving consumer goods value chain manager diving as much as 45.3 per cent drew a query from the bourse regulator.

The Hang Seng Index was at 29,880.42 points at the closing bell, while Shanghai Composite Index finished 1.95 per cent higher at 3,576.91 points.

Japan's Nikkei 225 Index was 0.51 per cent higher at 29,559.10 points, and South Korea's Kospi index climbed 1.29 per cent to 3,082.99 points. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 stood at 6,817.98 points, up 0.82 per cent when market closed.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index rose 1.18 per cent to 1,588.45 points.