SINGAPORE – Real estate trusts led the local bourse higher on Wednesday as traders returned from the Chinese New Year holiday with a spring in their step.
The optimistic mood defied a mixed session on Wall Street overnight and helped send the benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) surging 1.8 per cent or 59.06 points to close at 3,352.77 with 28 of the 30 STI constituents ending higher.
Gainers outnumbered losers 265 to 143 across the broader market after 975.2 million securities worth $1.5 billion were traded.
“Coming back online after the break, the STI is largely playing catch-up to previous bullish performances by global peers at the start of this week,” said IG market analyst Yeap Jun Rong, who noted that the index has been trading in a ranging pattern since mid-November.
Keppel DC Reit and Mapletree Logistics Trust (MLT) were the top gainers for the day. Keppel DC rose 3.6 per cent to $2 while MLT climbed 3 per cent to $1.69.
Mapletree Industrial Trust and CapitaLand Ascendas Reit were also among the top STI gainers, advancing around 2.5 per cent.
The banks – DBS, UOB and OCBC – also performed strongly, rising between 1.5 and 2.8 per cent.
Jardine Cycle & Carriage was the only STI counter to close in the red, slipping 0.04 per cent to $28.95.
Elsewhere, markets in the region ended the day mixed after the choppy day on Wall Street where the S&P 500 index dipped 0.1 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq retreated 0.3 per cent but the Dow Jones index added 0.3 per cent.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan rose 0.4 per cent and South Korea’s Kospi added 1.4 per cent but key indices in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur fell between 0.1 and 0.5 per cent.
It was dour day for Australian shares with the first fall in a week following inflation data that came in higher than expected, fuelling fears of stiffer interest rate rises. The fallout was a 0.3 per cent in the index. THE BUSINESS TIMES
