SINGAPORE - The local stock market eked out a marginal increase on Tuesday as it headed into the typically quiet Christmas holiday period.

The benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) gained just 1.55 points or 0.1 per cent to end at 3,332.51.

Volumes were also a little thinner, a day before Christmas eve. About 978.8 million shares worth $738.9 million changed hands.

Local shares managed to avoid the damage that several other major Asian markets took on Tuesday due to falling commodity stocks.

Hong Kong was down 0.3 per cent, Shanghai plunged 3 per cent and Seoul shed 0.2 per cent on Tuesday. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday.

"The commodity share rally was always expected to be short-lived," said IG market strategist Ryan Huang in a Bloomberg report.

"It was not sustainable with fundamentals largely unchanged. Investors are taking the rally as an opportunity to cash out and sell."

Losers outnumbered gainers in Singapore, with 204 counters declining on Tuesday compared wth 155 counters seeing gains.