Singapore shares end flat as market closes for the year

The market ended the year on a downbeat note yesterday, in keeping with what has been a choppy, volatile 12 months.

Traders with New Year's Eve festivities likely on their mind sent the Straits Times Index (STI) down 0.1 per cent or 2.96 points to 3,123.68 points on a half-day of trading.

Advancers beat decliners 227 to 151, with 488.8 million shares worth $313.2 million changing hands. The best performer on the STI was Keppel DC Reit, which rose 0.8 per cent to $2.47 while Hongkong Land was the worst, falling 1.5 per cent to US$5.20.

In the broader market, digital security firm Disa recorded the highest trading volume for the second straight day with the counter jumping 16.7 per cent with 30.4 million shares traded.

The trio of local banks saw mixed performance. DBS closed flat at $32.66, UOB fell 0.4 per cent to $26.90 while OCBC climbed 0.2 per cent to $11.40.

Olam International executive director A. Shekhar will step down from his post to focus on his responsibilities as the chief executive of Olam Food Ingredients (OFI), the company said in a bourse filing yesterday.

Olam had announced earlier last month that it is seeking shareholder approval to carve out and list its food ingredients arm by way of a scheme arrangement.

It is seeking an initial public offering for OFI in London, with a concurrent secondary listing in Singapore, by the first half of this year. The stock closed flat at $1.75.

Key Asian markets were also mixed. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index closed 1.2 per cent higher while the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down 0.7 per cent as at 12.20pm. The Japanese and South Korean markets were closed.

Wall Street went into a mild retreat overnight, reversing intraday increases after new numbers indicated that the Omicron variant has not led to a rise in job losses. The S&P 500 fell 0.3 per cent after a record close the day before, the Nasdaq slid 0.2 per cent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.2 per cent.