Singapore stocks fall after Wall Street sell-off; STI down 0.3%
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The benchmark STI was down 0.3 per cent or 12.15 points at 3,732.55.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Mia Pei
SINGAPORE - Equities in Singapore ended their three-day winning streak to finish lower on Nov 18 after a sell-off on Wall Street on Nov 15, as investors turned cautious amid worries of inflation under a second Donald Trump presidency.
The benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) was down 0.3 per cent, or 12.15 points, at 3,732.55.
Across the broader market, gainers outnumbered losers 278 to 260, with 1.1 billion securities worth $1.2 billion changing hands.
Key regional indexes were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei 225 ended 1.1 per cent lower, while South Korea’s Kospi Composite Index was up 2.2 per cent, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed 0.8 per cent higher.
On the STI, ST Engineering fell the most, losing 5.5 per cent or 26 cents to end at $4.45 on a cum-dividend basis, after it posted a third-quarter business update.
The top performer on the STI was Singapore Exchange (SGX), which gained 4.3 per cent or 49 cents to finish at $11.91.
Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to “overweight” from “underweight”, and also raised its price target to $14.31 from $10.01 previously.
“Singapore possesses the means and increasingly the political will to boost the vibrancy of its equity market. If it is successful, it will likely deliver benefits for the valuations of Singapore stocks, and for SGX in particular,” the bank said in a note on Nov 17.
It expects the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s review group, set up in August, to announce interim measures and provide plenty of stock catalysts over the next nine months.
“In our view, improving trading liquidity in the stock market is what will ultimately drive the desired outcomes of narrowing the valuation discount to peer markets and attracting new listings,” the lender said.
It also expects the valuation uplift to be broad-based across stocks and sectors, but skewed towards incumbent larger-cap index stocks that already attract some level of institutional investor interest in the near term.
The trio of local banks ended the day mixed. DBS Bank fell 1.3 per cent or 54 cents to $42.40, OCBC Bank ended flat at $16.44, and UOB rose 0.3 per cent or 11 cents to $36.48. THE BUSINESS TIMES
