Singapore shares soar on rally led by banks

SINGAPORE – A robust performance by the three banks revved up the local market on Friday despite mixed sessions in Asia and losses on Wall Street overnight.

The lenders were on a roll: OCBC rose 1.2 per cent to $13.22, UOB surged 3.4 per cent to $29.89 and DBS added 1.5 per cent to $34.26.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) did its bit for the Straits Times Index (STI) as well, rising 0.8 per cent to $7.58, a day after it reported record quarterly net profit of $734 million, up 98.4 per cent over the same period last year.

Phillip Securities noted that it expects a deceleration in yields for both passenger and cargo segments as other carriers add flight capacity and air travel demand eases. Higher crew and manpower costs could weigh on SIA’s performance, so a “reduce” recommendation was made on the counter, with a $6.80 target price.

These thriving big blue chips added plenty of juice to the STI, helping the benchmark jump 33.75 points or 1 per cent to 3,371.17, making it four straight sessions of gains and 2.8 per cent up for the week.

Gainers beat losers 325 to 276 across the broader market, on turnover of 1.7 billion shares worth $1.6 billion.

It was not all black ink. Seatrium, formerly Sembcorp Marine, fell 2.1 per cent to 14.3 cents after noting before markets opened that its net loss had deepened to $264.4 million for the six months to June 30.

The counter, with 671.3 million units changing hands, was the most active stock.

Friday was one of the few days of late when Wall Street did not set the direction of movement for local investors.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7 per cent overnight to snap a run of 13 consecutive winning sessions, its longest since 1987 and the second longest on record. The S&P 500 declined by 0.6 per cent and the tech-focused Nasdaq slid 0.5 per cent. THE BUSINESS TIMES