SINGAPORE – Local stocks rose for a fourth consecutive day on Friday to end the week higher amid a broader rally across the region.

The benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.5 per cent or 17.02 points to 3,394.21 and 3.1 per cent up for the week.

Real estate investment trusts (Reits) led Friday’s gains, making up four of the five top-performing STI counters. Keppel DC Reit topped the index performance table, climbing 3 per cent to $2.09. It was also the top performer for the week, with its units rising 8.3 per cent.

Frasers Logistics and Commercial Trust, Mapletree Industrial Trust and Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust rose between 1.6 per cent and 2.2 per cent.

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, at the other end of the spectrum, was the worst STI performer with a decline of 1.6 per cent to $1.25.

Gainers outnumbered losers 335 to 222 across the wider market with 1.6 billion securities worth $1.4 billion done.

Sembcorp Marine was the most actively traded by volume, with 255.5 million shares changing hands as the counter rose 2.9 per cent to 14.2 cents.

Elsewhere, markets broadly closed higher after Wall Street rose overnight to its highest level in nearly two months after data indicated that the economy and company profits may be healthier than many analysts had feared.

Key indices in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong rose between 0.1 per cent and 0.6 per cent, while Australian shares advanced 0.4 per cent to rack up their fourth consecutive week of gains.

Saxo market strategist Charu Chanana noted that expectations of a soft landing have picked up since the start of the year, relative to the rising recession bets seen in the second half of last year.

She noted that recent economic data has been “extremely volatile”.

“There is reason to believe that the US Federal Reserve will want to lengthen its tightening cycle, and go in smaller steps, in order to buy more time to assess the growth and inflation dynamics,” she added. THE BUSINESS TIMES