Singapore stocks fall amid mixed regional showing

SINGAPORE – Local investors struggled to find any direction in the market on Wednesday amid concerns over a possible escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Wall Street took an initial overnight hit as reports emerged that a

Russian missile had crossed over into Poland.

United States officials have since suggested that the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile.

That settled Wall Street down, with all three indexes rebounding from steep losses to finish in the black, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq the stand-out performer, rising a robust 1.5 per cent.

Signs of thawing of US-China relations after years of rising tension and forecasts that US inflation might be waning sooner than expected helped the mood as well.

But all that failed to translate into similar outcomes later in the region, where major bourses recorded mixed results.

The lack of any real investor focus left the Straits Times Index (STI) down 0.3 per cent or 9.11 points at 3,266.17 amid mixed regional performance.

In the broader market, gainers narrowly beat losers 292 to 271, after 1.7 billion shares worth $1.5 billion were traded.

Across the region, major markets were mixed.

South Korea’s Kospi edged down 0.1 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.5 per cent, Australian shares dipped 0.3 per cent while Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.1 per cent.

ST Engineering was the STI’s strongest performer, gaining 2.3 per cent to close at $3.50.

This came after the company announced on Tuesday night that its TransCore subsidiary had secured a contract worth $1.47 billion to modernise the tolling infrastructure in New Jersey.

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding was at the bottom of the table, declining 3 per cent to $1.31.

The three local banks ended in the red. DBS shed 0.3 per cent to $35.07, OCBC lost 0.4 per cent to $12.42, while UOB fell 0.5 per cent to close at $29.84.

THE BUSINESS TIMES