Singapore shares continue drop as virus spread weighs on sentiment

ASIAN equity markets continued their slide to start the week, with investors keeping a close eye on developments of the fast-spreading novel coronavirus.

New cases within China have slowed in the past week but Stephen Innes, AxiCorp's chief market strategist, noted that markets remain "extremely concerned" about an escalation outside of China, something that is holding back risk-friendly activity.

Singapore's Straits Times Index opened the week 1.3 per cent lower but managed to claw back some of those losses to end Monday's session at 3,163.15, down 18.33 points or 0.6 per cent.

Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan all ended lower.

Bucking the trend was China's Shanghai Composite Index. Investors were encouraged by Chinese authorities lifting some work and travel restrictions, which helped businesses to resume operations. The index added 14.52 points or 0.5 per cent to 2,890.49.

On the performance of the region's markets, Oanda Asia-Pacific senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley observed that "most Asian markets opened much lower and recovered some of those initial losses". He added: "It is, however, hard to see further gains occurring from here against the backdrop of the coronavirus. That is likely to be the theme of the week, as the economic damage is totalled up from the outbreak."

Trading volume in Singapore was 1.59 billion securities, 34 per cent over the 2019 daily average. Meanwhile, total turnover was S$1.07 billion, in line with last year's intraday mean. Decliners trumped advancers 266 to 160.

Medtecs International was the Singapore bourse's most traded counter on Monday, adding 0.8 Singapore cent or 7.7 per cent to 11.1 cents with 263.2 million shares changing hands.

Like Medtecs, the iEdge SG All Healthcare Index, which tracks all healthcare-related stocks in the Singapore market, outperformed the market, adding 6.21 points or 0.4 per cent to 1,440.35.

With the rush to stock up on groceries after the government raised its risk assessment of the novel coronavirus to Orange, investors added positions on supermarket operator Sheng Siong, which gained S$0.05 or 4.1 per cent to S$1.28.

In line with the risk-off session, the local banks closed lower. DBS Group Holdings fell S$0.20 or 0.8 per cent to S$25.11, OCBC Bank dropped S$0.14 or 1.3 per cent to S$10.72 while United Overseas Bank finished at S$25.57, losing S$0.38 or 1.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, ThaiBev, trading ex-dividend since Feb 7, edged down S$0.01 or 1.3 per cent to S$0.75 after CLSA downgraded the food and beverage player on near-term earnings pressure from its Thailand and Vietnam businesses. 

Among real estate investment trusts (Reits), Manulife US Reit closed flat at US$1.05. Last week, the pure-play US office Reit reported a 16 per cent year-on-year increase in Q4 FY2019 net profit to US$22.6 million. While positive on the performance, believing upside going forward could be capped, KGI Securities head of Singapore Research Joel Ng downgraded the counter to "Neutral".

"Its unit price has performed well, giving a total return of 42 per cent (inclusive of dividends) in 2019 and 5 per cent year-to-date (YTD), significantly outperforming the FTSE ST REIT Index, which had a total return of 26 per cent in 2019 and 3 per cent YTD," he noted.