Singapore's Straits Times Index (STI) concluded Wednesday with a 1.4% decrease, closing at 3,129.72. This followed an earlier dip during trading hours when the index fell by 19.47 points or 0.6% to 3,154.34. The decline was part of a larger trend of losses across Asian markets, including Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
Telecommunications company Singtel led the downturn with a substantial 4.8% drop, attributed to a significant outage at its Australian subsidiary Optus. Other companies that witnessed losses over 2% included Sembcorp Industries, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, ST Engineering and Keppel (OTC:KPELY) Corp. Keppel Reit also observed a decline of 2.4% after pricing S$200 million notes on Tuesday.
Major banking stocks such as DBS, UOB, and OCBC also saw losses of 0.4%, 0.8%, and 0.2%, respectively, on Wednesday. On the other hand, Singapore Airlines (OTC:SINGY) and UOL outperformed the index with gains.
The most traded stock was Seatrium with 315 million shares changing hands worth $34.9 million. However, the stock fell by 3.5% after predicting a net loss for FY2023 despite better operational performance. Earlier in the day, it had lost 1.8% due to its projected net loss for the fiscal year.
SPI Asset Management attributed the slump in Asian markets to weak China trade data while noting that Australia's ASX 200 defied the trend with a slight rise of 0.3%. Meanwhile, US indices like the Nasdaq Composite Index, S&P 500, and Dow Jones Industrial Average gained by 0.9%, 0.3%, and 0.2% respectively on Tuesday.
The broader Singapore market traded 1.4 billion securities worth $1.2 billion, with more stocks declining than advancing.
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