SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) – Local shares broke their six-day winning streak as fatigue set in on Wednesday, spurred further by losses across the region following Wall Street’s overnight weakness.
The key Straits Times Index fell 25.55 points or 0.80 per cent to finish at 3,165.34, but it did cap a stellar first quarter. Turnover on the local bourse stood at 1.73 billion shares worth $1.52 billion with losers trumping gainers 310 to 172 .
Singapore Exchange’s market strategist Geoff Howie pointed out that while the majority of counters ended the session in the red, this was the STI’s strongest first quarter since its 13.8 per cent gain in the first three months of 2012.
The index’s 11.3 per cent gain year-to-date makes it the second best performer among major global benchmarks for the first three-month period and a close second to Taiwan’s key gauge that logged a 11.8 per cent rise over the same period in Singapore dollar terms, Mr Howie added.
Key gauges from Japan to Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia closed in the red.
Australia bucked the trend, closing up 0.8 per cent but gave away more than half of its intraday rise after a brisk sell-off late in the day.
The broad weakness in Asian bourses, partly owing to quarter-end rebalancing flows, comes in spite of China posting strong factory data and ahead of United States President Joe Biden’s US$ 2 trillion infrastructure plan that will be aimed at modernising the nation’s faltering transport network.
Banking, a sector which was also the world’s best performing, gave the STI a strong lift for the three-month period to Mar 31.
DBS, OCBC and UOB saw $1 billion of net institutional inflow in the first quarter and averaged 15.4 per cent gains over the period, in line with the top quartile of global banks by market value.
But they ended the quarter on a low note with all three declining by between 0.7 and 1 per cent.
