Singapore shares close flat on Monday

IT WAS rather quiet on the Singapore bourse - as was the case in many other Asian markets on Monday - with the key Straits Times Index finishing on a flat note at 2,511.21, up by 1.57 points or 0.06 per cent.

A wait-and-see stance was the dominant theme, even as investors breathed a sigh of relief that last Thursday's rout in US tech stocks did not spill over to the following day (last Friday), with Wall Street closing lower in an orderly fashion; this was partly owing to the absence of untoward shocks in the US jobs data that was released on Friday.

The tight range trading on the Singapore market comes ahead of the Labour Day holiday in the US markets.

Key Asian markets put up a mixed showing on Monday. Japan was down 0.5 per cent; Hong Kong fell 0.4 per cent. China's Shanghai Composite lost 1.9 per cent, and Malaysia closed 0.3 per cent lower. South Korea and Australia eked out gains of 0.7 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively.

Caution persisted in the air amid worries of a pandemic-led global economic gloom and escalating US-China rift. Over the weekend, the US said it was considering cutting trade with China's largest chip maker SMIC, threatening to escalate Washington's tech war against China.

In the commodities space, oil prices hit their lowest since July, after Saudi Arabia cut oil prices as coronavirus continued to sap energy demand.

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Later this week, Malaysia's Bank Negara, the Bank of Canada and the European Central Bank (ECB) will hold policy meetings and are largely expected to keep rates steady.

Trading volume on the Singapore market totalled 1.32 billion shares worth S$780.8 million, with 11 counters up and 15 down.

Gains were led by OCBC as well as Capitaland Commercial Trust (CCT) and Capitaland Mall Trust (CMT), which added five index points to the STI.

CCT units ended the day higher, by four Singapore cents or 2.4 per cent to S$1.69; CMT jumped five Singapore cents or 2.6 per cent to S$1.98. Last Friday, CMT and CCT announced deal sweeteners for their proposed merger with the extraordinary general meeting now fixed for Sept 29.

Maybank Kim-Eng has a "buy" rating on CMT on improving sector fundamentals and undemanding valuations.

StarHub closed unchanged at S$1.18. The local telco, together with M1, were fined by the Infocomm Media Development Authority over disruptions to their broadband Internet service in April and May respectively.