SINGAPORE equities ended their three-day winning streak to finish Monday (Nov 18) lower, after a sell-off on Wall Street last Friday as investors turned cautious amid inflation worries under a second Donald Trump presidency.
The benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) was down 0.3 per cent or 12.15 points at 3,732.55.
Across the broader market, gainers outnumbered losers 278 to 260, with 1.1 billion securities worth S$1.2 billion changing hands.
Key regional indices were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei 225 ended 1.1 per cent lower, while South Korea’s Kospi Composite Index was up 2.2 per cent, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed 0.8 per cent higher.
On the STI, ST Engineering fell the most, losing 5.5 per cent or S$0.26 to end at S$4.45 on a cum dividend basis, after the company posted a third-quarter business update.
The top performer on the STI was Singapore Exchange (SGX), which gained 4.3 per cent or S$0.49 to finish at S$11.91.
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Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to “overweight” from “underweight”, and also raised its price target to S$14.31 from S$10.01 previously.
“Singapore possesses the means and increasingly the political will to boost the vibrancy of its equity market. If it is successful, it will likely deliver benefits for the valuations of Singapore stocks, and for SGX in particular,” the bank said in a note on Sunday.
It expects the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s review group, set up in August, to announce interim measures and provide plenty of stock catalysts over the next nine months.
“In our view, improving trading liquidity in the stock market is what will ultimately drive the desired outcomes of narrowing the valuation discount to peer markets and attracting new listings,” the lender said.
It also expects the valuation uplift to be broad-based across stocks and sectors, but skewed towards incumbent larger-cap index stocks that already attract some level of institutional investor interest in the near term.
The trio of local banks ended the day mixed. DBS fell 1.3 per cent or S$0.54 to S$42.40, OCBC ended flat at S$16.44, and UOB rose 0.3 per cent or S$0.11 to S$36.48.
