Singapore stocks open lower, tracking Wall Street tumble; STI down 0.4%

SINGAPORE shares opened lower on Tuesday, tracking sharp losses on Wall Street overnight.

The Straits Times Index (STI) dropped 9.37 points or 0.4 per cent to 2,513.94 as at 9.05am.

Losers beat gainers 79 to 54, after 65.6 million securities worth S$57.2 million changed hands.

Catalist-listed Aspen, one of the most actively traded counters by volume, rose 1.5 Singapore cents or 6.8 per cent to 23.5 cents after 5.2 million shares changed hands.

The Malaysian property developer and soon-to-be glove maker on Monday announced it intends to transfer its listing to the mainboard, in a bid to boost visibility in the market to help future fundraising efforts.

Other active counters include Thai Beverage, unchanged at S$0.59 with 3.3 million shares traded, and Sembcorp Marine, which slipped 0.1 Singapore cent or 0.8 per cent to 13.1 cents after 2.7 million shares changed hands.

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All three local banks lost ground in early trade. DBS fell S$0.06 or 0.3 per cent to S$21.24, UOB dropped S$0.17 or 0.9 per cent to S$19.68, while OCBC declined S$0.05 or 0.6 per cent to S$8.69.

US stocks posted their worst session in weeks on Monday, driven down by fading hopes for a stimulus package, mounting worries over rising coronavirus cases in the country, and jitters about the Nov 3 presidential election.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 2.3 per cent to end at 27,685.38, a loss of 650 points. The broad-based S&P 500 fell 1.9 per cent to 3,400.97, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index shed 1.6 per cent to 11,358.94.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened lower on Tuesday. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.7 per cent or 170.04 points at 23,324.30 in early trade, while the broader Topix index declined 1 per cent or 15.93 points to 1,603.05.