Singapore shares track Wall Street losses to close 0.4% lower

SINGAPORE – Local shares fell on Tuesday, tracking losses on Wall Street. The Straits Times Index (STI) slid 0.4 per cent to end at 3,365.67.

Losers outnumbered gainers 297 to 241, after 1.3 billion securities worth $1.2 billion changed hands.

SPI Asset Management managing partner Stephen Innes noted that a possible higher-for-longer United States Federal Reserve funds rate regime may have put pressure on markets.

He said: “With peak-inflation euphoria ebbing, US data surprisingly sliding negative of late and the Fed potentially pushing back on the loosening of financial conditions, the US and the rest of the world’s equity markets have run out of puff today.”

Despite positive developments in recent months – including China’s reopening, reduced recession risks in Europe and improving inflation in the US – recession risks in the US will most likely remain a major worry, and may pose the most significant risk to the global cyclical picture, Mr Innes said.

Elsewhere in the region, markets were largely in the red. The Hang Seng Index fell 1 per cent, the Nikkei 225 slid 0.4 per cent, the Kospi composite index was down 1 per cent, and the FTSE Bursa Malaysia index closed 0.9 per cent lower.

In Singapore, the top gainer on the STI was Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, rising 4 per cent to close at $1.29.

Meanwhile, the top loser on the index was Emperador, which fell 2 per cent to close at 49 cents.

The trio of local banks ended mixed on Tuesday. DBS gained 0.3 per cent to $35.79, while UOB fell 0.8 per cent to $29.83, and OCBC lost 0.5 per cent to $12.93.

THE BUSINESS TIMES