There were 253 rising issues, 370 decliners and 1,054 issues were even.

'The rebound we saw came very strong so profit-taking was not unexpected,' said Ong Seng Yeow, research head at Kelive Research, a unit of Kim Eng Securities.

A better-than-expected annual 10 per cent rise in factory output was also not enough to whet investors' risk appetite, dealers said.

'It was surprisingly strong... but things are going to slow from here,' said Kit Wei Zheng, economist at Citigroup.

For the blue chips, Singapore Airlines rose 22 cents to 15.26, Singapore Telecommunications eased one cent to four dollars and Singapore Press Holdings was six cents up at 4.58 dollars.

In the bank sector, DBS Group dropped six cents to 18.38 dollars, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp rose eight cents to 8.14 dollars and United Overseas Bank dropped four cents to 19.24 dollars.

In the property sector, CapitaLand eased four cents to 6.26 dollars, City Developments gained eight cents to 10.98 dollars and Keppel Land fell one cent to 5.53 dollars. -- AFP