Singapore shares fall at Wednesday's open tracking Wall Street retreat; STI down 0.4%

SINGAPORE shares pulled back at Wednesday's open, following a negative lead from Wall Street as the session's gains were wiped out after US President Donald Trump put a halt to stimulus talks.

On the Singapore bourse, the benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) shed 9.17 points or 0.4 per cent to 2,520.09 as at 9.01am.

Decliners outpaced advancers 74 to 24, after 25.1 million securities worth S$35.1 million changed hands.

The most active counter by volume was Golden Agri-Resources which gained 0.2 Singapore cent or 1.4 per cent to 14.7 cents, with 1.9 million shares traded. This comes as the integrated palm oil producer on Tuesday said it has incorporated a Brazilian sugar subsidiary.

Other heavily traded securities included Sembcorp Marine which fell 0.1 Singapore cent or 0.7 per cent to 14.6 cents, with 1.5 million shares traded, while Singtel dropped S$0.02 or 0.9 per cent to S$2.15, with 1.1 million shares traded.

The trio of local lenders were down in early trade. DBS slipped S$0.09 or 0.4 per cent to S$20.62, UOB declined S$0.07 or 0.4 per cent to S$19.46, while OCBC shed S$0.04 or 0.5 per cent to S$8.58.

Bucking the downward trend however, was Wilmar International, which gained S$0.04 or 0.9 per cent to S$4.58. Proceeds from the listing of Wilmar's China unit, Yihai Kerry Arawana, will go towards the partial funding of 19 investment projects in China, The Business Times reported on Wednesday.

Over on Wall Street, equities reversed course to end lower on Tuesday after Mr Trump dashed hopes for another round of stimulus spending.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 1.3 per cent to close at 27,772.76, the broad-based S&P 500 fell 1.4 per cent to finish the session at 3,360.97, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 1.6 per cent to 11,154.60.

Meanwhile, European shares stretched their gains for a fourth session on Tuesday, as banking stocks stole the spotlight. After shedding as much as 0.5 per cent at one point, the pan-European Stoxx 600 index gradually erased losses to close 0.1 per cent higher.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo stocks opened lower on Wednesday, tracking falls on Wall Street overnight. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.6 per cent or 138.53 points to 23,295.20 in early trade, while the broader Topix index declined 0.6 per cent or 10.16 points to 1,635.59.