Singapore stocks slip ahead of CNY holiday; STI down 0.2% at open

SINGAPORE shares slipped in the first few minutes of trade on Thursday, following a mixed showing on Wall Street overnight.

The Straits Times Index (STI) fell 5.43 points or 0.2 per cent to 2,920.41 as at 9.01am. Gainers outnumbered losers 72 to 66, after 146.4 million securities worth S$68.5 million changed hands.

The Singapore bourse is open for half-day trading till noon on Thursday ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday.

Among the index securities, the most heavily traded by volume was Thai Beverage, which fell 0.5 Singapore cent or 0.6 per cent to 80 cents, with 4.1 million shares traded. The beverage company on Thursday announced a net profit of 8.47 billion baht (S$376 million) for its first quarter ended Dec 31, up 0.5 per cent from a year ago.

Singtel shed S$0.02 or 0.8 per cent to S$2.38, with 2.3 million shares changing hands. This comes after the telco on Thursday said unidentified hackers illegally attacked a third-party standalone system it uses to share information internally and with external stakeholders.

Separately, in a business update on Wednesday, Singtel posted operating revenue of S$4.24 billion for its third quarter ended Dec 31, down 3.2 per cent year on year. The group also said it will hire and train 500 professionals in Singapore over the next two years in the lead-up to the 5G rollout.

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Meanwhile, the trio of local lenders were mixed in early trade. DBS gained S$0.06 or 0.2 per cent to S$26.06 on a cum-dividend basis, OCBC slipped S$0.02 or 0.2 per cent to S$10.52, while UOB fell S$0.06 or 0.3 per cent to S$23.83. DBS on Wednesday said it is seeing encouraging signs on overall asset quality in 2021 as moratoriums gradually taper off, with extensions on debt holidays contained and delinquencies kept low. The lender reported a net profit of S$1.01 billion for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, down 33 per cent from a year ago.

Other active securities include Keppel DC Reit, which sank S$0.06 or 2.1 per cent to S$2.87.

Far East Hospitality Trust added one Singapore cent or 1.7 per cent to 58.5 cents. For the half year ended Dec 31, the group's distribution per stapled security fell 30.7 per cent to 1.38 Singapore cents from a year ago, while gross revenue tumbled 34.8 per cent to S$39 million due to rental rebates and waivers granted to tenants during Covid-19, its manager said on Thursday.

Over on Wall Street, US stocks finished mixed on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at a record after dovish remarks from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell regarding inflation and monetary policy.

The Dow gained 0.2 per cent to 31,437.74, narrowly eclipsing Monday's record after a choppy session. The broad-based S&P 500 dropped by a hair to 3,909.88, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.3 per cent to 13,972.53, snapping a four-day streak of records.

European shares ended lower on Wednesday, as Wall Street's retreat from record highs dragged Europe down. Gains in commodity-linked shares and banks were outweighed by losses in most other sectors, taking the pan-European Stoxx 600 index 0.2 per cent lower.

Elsewhere in Asia, financial markets in Japan, South Korea, mainland China and Taiwan are closed on Thursday for public holidays.