Singapore stocks fall at open after Wall Street resumes slide; STI down 0.4%

SINGAPORE shares opened weaker on Friday following overnight losses on Wall Street as US stocks resumed a downward trend.

The Straits Times Index (STI) slipped 0.4 per cent or 9.49 points to 2,482.60 as at 9.05am.

Losers outnumbered gainers 70 to 51, after 61 million securities worth S$50 million changed hands.

The most active counter by volume was Sembcorp Marine, which fell 3.3 per cent or 0.6 Singapore cent to 17.6 cents, with 22.7 million shares changing hands.

Other heavily traded securities include Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, which rose 1.1 per cent or one Singapore cent to 96.5 cents, with 3.7 million shares traded, and Golden Agri-Resources, which lost 0.7 per cent or 0.1 Singapore cent to 14.4 cents, with 1.9 million shares changing hands.

AEM Holdings advanced 4.6 per cent or S$0.15 to S$3.44, with 1.8 million shares traded. The company, which provides advanced chip-testing solutions, on Thursday revised its FY2020 revenue guidance upwards to between S$480 million and S$500 million. It had, in its H1 2020 results announcement, pegged it at between S$460 million and S$480 million.

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Banking stocks fell in early trade. DBS lost 0.4 per cent or S$0.08 to S$20.46, UOB declined 0.7 per cent or S$0.13 to S$19.26, while OCBC dropped 0.5 per cent or S$0.04 to S$8.54.

Other active index counters include Wilmar International, which held steady at S$4.17, and Ascendas Real Estate Investment Trust, which fell 0.9 per cent or S$0.03 to S$3.24.

In the US, stocks retreated on Thursday, resuming a downward trend from recent sessions as a relief package suffered another setback in Congress.

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 2 per cent to 10,919.59, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.5 per cent to 27,534.58, while the S&P 500 fell 1.8 per cent to 3,339.19.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened lower on Friday. The Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.2 per cent to 23,190.37, while the Topix index lost 0.2 per cent to 1,622.27.