STI down 1.6% as West hits Russia with further sanctions

Singapore stocks fell yesterday as further Western sanctions were imposed on Russia following its attack on Ukraine.

The benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) ended down 1.6 per cent, or 52.23 points, at 3,242.24. Across the broader market, decliners outnumbered advancers 277 to 224 after 1.72 billion shares worth $3.01 billion changed hands.

IG market strategist Yeap Jun Rong said renewed risk-off sentiment could have been spurred by tougher sanctions imposed by the West on Russia. These include the exclusion of Russia's financial institutions from the Swift network, which would block Russia's central bank from using its international reserves to blunt the impact of sanctions.

"For now, the exclusion of Russia's banks from the Swift system is carefully limited to selected banks so as to not impact Russia's supply of oil and gas to Europe, but the uncertainty will be whether Russia will restrict these exports as a retaliatory move," he said.

Singapore was an outlier in the region, however.

Apart from Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index which declined 0.2 per cent, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.2 per cent while South Korea's Kospi rose 0.8 per cent. The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) climbed 1 per cent.

Among the STI's counters, DBS led the index's decline as it fell 3.2 per cent, or $1.13, to close at $33.82.

UOB dropped 2.2 per cent to close at $29.91, while OCBC fell 1.5 per cent to close at $11.67.

At the top of the table was ST Engineering, which climbed 1.3 per cent to close at $3.82.

Other hotly traded counters included Singtel, which closed down 3.1 per cent at $2.52 with 92 million shares traded, and CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust, which fell 0.5 per cent to close at $2.11.

Outside the index, equipment manufacturing provider UMS was hotly traded after announcing a strong set of FY2021 earnings.