3,200.130 +43.56 (1.38%)
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Singapore shares extend gains as Chinese stimulus lifts sentiment
05 Feb 2020 18:26
By Navin Sregantan
ASIAN equity markets managed to spend an additional day basking in the sun, building on Tuesday's recovery as investors grew confident of policy support efforts by China's central bank to combat the economic effects of the fast-spreading coronavirus.
In Singapore, the Straits Times Index (STI) opened flat but made progressive gains across the session to finish at 3,200.13, adding 43.56 points or 1.4 per cent.
It was similar elsewhere in the region as Australia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan all notched up broad gains. Boosted by the People's Bank of China's stimulus efforts, the Shanghai Composite Index advanced 34.80 points or 1.3 per cent to 2,818.09.
"Global markets have advanced on the back of the better tone from (Tuesday's) Asian session. The main staging post was unquestionably the Chinese equities that managed to claw back some of Monday's steep losses," AxiCorp chief market strategist Stephen Innes observed.
Asia's manufacturing and services data for January continued in expansionary territory, indicating economic resilience during a month where investor confidence was shaken by virus fears.
That being said, Jeffrey Halley, Oanda's Asia-Pacific's senior market analyst, noted that uncertainty remains over whether "we are hitting 'peak virus' or 'peak optimism'". The past two sessions suggest the former, though it's anybody's guess, given the virus has an incubation period of up to two weeks.
Trading volume in Singapore was 1.95 billion securities, 65 per cent over the 2019 daily average. Total turnover stood at S$1.26 billion, 19 per cent more than last year's intraday mean.
Advancers beat decliners 235 to 171. Like Tuesday, just two of the benchmark's 30 counters ended in the red.
With contagion fears easing and the new coronavirus having a lower fatality rate than others, more investors turned to buying cyclical counters off their recent lows.
The Singapore banks ended higher. DBS Group Holdings gained S$0.30 or 1.2 per cent to S$25.45, OCBC Bank added S$0.15 or 1.4 per cent to S$11.00 while United Overseas Bank finished at S$26.05, advancing S$0.26 or 1 per cent.
Genting Singapore, vulnerable to a large decline in gaming revenues due to the virus outbreak, added S$0.02 or 2.4 per cent to 86.5 cents. With 44.1 million shares traded, it was the STI's most active counter.
While acknowledging that the gaming sector faces declining revenues on lower tourist numbers, Moody's senior credit officer Jacintha Poh said Genting's Resorts World Sentosa has "sufficient cash to meet committed capital spending in 2020 and has minimal debt maturities this year".
Among real estate investment trusts (Reits), Manulife US Reit fell US$0.03 or 2.8 per cent to US$1.04 after the pure-play US office Reit posted a 5.9 per cent fall in distribution per unit (DPU) to 1.44 US cents. The decline was attributed to an enlarged unit base after a recent placement and preferential offering to partially fund the purchase of a mall in Sacramento, California.
Among firms in the second line, CSE Global finished S$0.02 or 3.9 per cent higher at S$0.53 after saying on Tuesday its business units secured a total of S$230 million worth of new orders for the fourth quarter of 2019.
Source: Business Times Breaking News
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