SINGAPORE - Singapore stocks opened weaker on Thursday (May 16), with the Straits Times Index edging down 0.16 per cent or 5.17 points to 3,213.60 as at 9.02am.
This came despite Wall Street stocks climbing for a second straight session overnight on signs of easing trade tensions, offsetting lacklustre US economic data.
On the Singapore bourse, losers outnumbered gainers just slightly by 61 to 55, after about 46.6 million shares worth $61.6 million exchanged hands.
Among the most heavily traded by volume, YZJ Shipbuilding was trading at $1.48 on a cum-dividend basis, up 1.4 per cent or two cents, with 9.2 million shares traded. Alliance Mineral also gained, rising 8.4 per cent or 1.5 cents to trade at 19.3 cents.
Other active stocks included ST Engineering, which was up 1.3 per cent or five cents to $3.95; and BoardRoom, which rose 14.3 per cent or 11 cents to $0.88.
This comes after G K Goh Holdings on Wednesday night said it had made a voluntary unconditional cash offer for BoardRoom, a mainboard-listed corporate secretarial services firm, in a bid to delist it. G K Goh is offering $0.88 in cash for each BoardRoom share, in a deal that values the company at $184.5 million. At $0.88, the offer price is a premium of 14.3 per cent to the last transacted price of $0.77 a share on May 3.
Separately, AEM lost 1 per cent or one cent to trade at $0.98 on an ex-dividend basis, while CapitaLand slipped 0.6 per cent or two cents to $3.32 in early trade.
Elsewhere, Asian shares got some reprieve on Thursday on news that US President Donald Trump is planning to delay tariffs on European auto imports, but traded mixed.
Japan's Topix slid 0.3 per cent as of 9.05am in Tokyo, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index and South Korea's Kospi both added 0.1 per cent, Bloomberg reported.
