Singapore stocks down for second straight day on Covid-19 jitters

The Straits Times Index fell 13.17 points, or 0.42 per cent, to finish at 3,139.98. PHOTO: ST FILE

SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) - Investors sent the local market south on Thursday after concerns over case numbers here trumped better-than-expected Chinese growth figures and dovish remarks by the United States central bank chief to calm inflation jitters.

The Straits Times Index fell 13.17 points, or 0.42 per cent, to finish at 3,139.98 - down for the second straight day - following a flat showing overnight on Wall Street.

Key regional gauges were mixed. Japan fell 1.2 per cent and Australia slipped 0.3 per cent, while Hong Kong, mainland China, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan advanced.

US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said the economy is "a ways off" from where it needs to be for the central bank to change policy, soothing worries that the Fed could tighten sooner following hot inflation numbers in the US.

New data indicated that China's economy grew 1.3 per cent from the first to the second quarter - "a modest acceleration from the downward-revised 0.4 per cent in the previous quarter, and slightly above consensus and our expectations", said Julius Baer economist Sophie Altermatt.

Turnover on the local bourse came in at 1.42 billion shares worth $993.15 million, with losers pipping gainers 241 to 238.

The banks - OCBC, DBS and UOB - and Singtel and Singapore Airlines led the losses here.

Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust jumped 2.1 per cent to close at a 52-week high of $4.87 on Wednesday's news that it has signed new master lease deals with IHH Healthcare - Asia's largest private hospital operator - for its hospitals in Singapore.

It is the "deal of the decade", said DBS Group Research as the renewal of the Singapore hospitals' master lease comes with a massive 40 per cent rent increment, 27 per cent rise in net asset value, and a new lease of life secured for the next two decades.

Fortress Minerals rose nearly 8 per cent to 68 cents. An iron ore boom on the back of a global economic rebound drove an over threefold increase in the Malaysian miner's quarterly net profit.

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