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STI falls 2.18 per cent to 9-week low as Singapore imposes social curbs

FRI, MAY 14, 2021 - 6:05 PM

ANITA GABRIELanitag@sph.com.sg@AnitaGabrielBT

SINGAPORE'S key Straits Times Index fell more than 3 per cent mid-Friday as fresh lockdown rules to fight rising Covid-19 cases raised concerns about the mending economy.

The STI plunged the most in nearly a year by 68.24 points or 2.18 per cent to finish at a nine-week low of 3,055.02 on Friday. The losses made the local bourse an outlier in the region as its major peers finished the week on a higher note following modest gains overnight in Wall Street as inflation worries eased.

Week-on-week, the STI has lost 145.2 points or 4.5 per cent after closing red every day in a holiday-shortened trading week.

The emergence of major clusters at the airport and a local hospital, which prompted the latest round of restrictions, serves as a stark reminder on how delicate the recovery from the pandemic is, albeit fortified by the ongoing vaccine rollout.

"Tightened social restrictions will effectively freeze the recovery of private consumption in the short term," remarked Yu Liuqing of The Economist Intelligence Unit (The EIU), adding however that disruption to businesses will be less pronounced than the circuit breaker period last year as businesses have adapted to working from home.

Turnover was high with 3.52 billion units worth S$3.22 billion changing hands. In the broader market, decliners outpaced gainers with 467 counters down and 127 up.

Singtel retreated 9 Singapore cents or 3.7 per cent to S$2.32 and was the day's seventh most actively traded with 72 million shares worth S$168 million done. The telco said on Friday morning that it was launching a strategic review of two key units and warned that its second half and full year ended-March results are expected to include net exceptional losses of S$839 million and S$1.21 billion respectively owing to impairments.

Frencken Group closed unchanged at S$1.42. The company released a stellar first quarter update earlier this week on better product mix and margins. DBS Group Research issued a buy rating on the counter with a 12-month target price of S$1.98 given its resilient earnings, thanks to its diversified portfolio, and higher contribution from the semiconductor segment.