Singapore shares open almost flat on Tuesday; STI up 0.02%

SINGAPORE shares opened almost flat on Tuesday (Oct 29), after US and Europe’s indices rose overnight.

As at 9.01 am, the Straits Times Index (STI) rose 0.71 point or 0.02 per cent to 3,584.79. Across the broader market, gainers outnumbered losers 60 to 56 after 26.8 million securities worth S$43.3 million changed hands.

IT services provider SinoCloud Group was the most actively traded counter by volume. It climbed 5.9 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.018 after 2.8 million shares changed hands.

Other actively traded counters included agri-food company Japfa, which rose 13.9 per cent or S$0.05 to S$0.41, and nanotechnology solutions provider Nanofilm, which grew 4.9 per cent or S$0.04 to S$0.865.

Banking stocks were up at the open. DBS inched up 0.2 per cent or S$0.07 to S$39.15, OCBC grew 0.1 per cent or S$0.01 to S$15.28, and UOB gained 0.2 per cent or S$0.05 to S$32.46.

Wall Street stocks climbed on Monday at the start of a heavy week of earnings and economic data, while markets also monitor the finale of the US presidential campaign.

With markets eyeing the earnings reports of major tech companies this week including Apple, Amazon and Facebook-parent Meta, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7 per cent to 42,387.57. The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.3 per cent to 5,823.52, and the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also advanced 0.3 per cent to 18,567.19.

Over in Europe, its main stock index closed higher on Monday as gains across most sectors outweighed the weakness in energy stocks on a slide in oil prices, with investors looking for crucial economic data and big-ticket US tech earnings scheduled for later in the week. The pan-European Stoxx 600 finished 0.4 per cent higher at 520.95.