Sats leads 7th straight day of gains amid market rally; STI up 0.1%

SINGAPORE – A sterling set of results from airport service company Sats helped the local market rack up its seventh straight day of gains on Aug 21.

Sats, a constituent stock of the Straits Times Index (STI), rocketed 11.5 per cent to $3.59 and in turn dragged the index up just enough to allow it to end in the black.

That slight rise of 0.1 per cent or 3.45 points left the bourse at 3,373.76 and its seventh consecutive positive finish.

Gainers were almost even with losers – 266 to 267 – with a modest 848.9 million shares worth $846.4 million changing hands.

Investors here were clearly impressed by the first-quarter numbers posted by Sats after the markets closed on Aug 20 with net profit of $65 million, a marked turnaround from the loss of $29.9 million recorded a year earlier.

CGS International analysts Tay Wee Kuang and Lim Siew Khee raised Sats’ target price to $4.10, maintained their “buy” call and raised their earnings forecasts by 88.1 per cent for the 2025 fiscal year.

Meanwhile, Venture Corp was at the bottom of the STI performance table, down 0.8 per cent to $14.06 on a cum-dividend basis.

The local banks all ended in the red: UOB was down 0.4 per cent to $30.68; OCBC Bank lost 0.3 per cent to $14.34; and DBS Bank dropped 0.2 per cent to $35.78.

The Sats effect largely offset the wary tone set overnight by Wall Street, where the three main indexes slipped after an eight-day advance – the longest of the year.

Cautious investors are keeping an eye on possible interest rate hints when United States Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell delivers a key speech in Wyoming.

Regional markets closed mixed. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index lost 0.3 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.7 per cent but South Korea’s Kospi put on 0.2 per cent. Australian shares rose 0.2 per cent – their ninth consecutive day of gains.

THE BUSINESS TIMES