Singapore shares muted at Monday's open; STI down 0.03%

SINGAPORE shares opened slightly lower at the start of the week, with the Straits Times Index slipping 0.03 per cent, or 0.94 point to 3,193.77 as at 9.01am.

Gainers outnumbered losers 63 to 37, after about 28.8 million shares worth S$45.3 million changed hands.

Among the most heavily traded by volume, Tritech gained 8.3 per cent, or 0.2 cent to 2.6 Singapore cents, with 4.5 million shares traded, while Rex International was up 1.8 per cent, or 0.3 cent to 17.2 Singapore cents, with 3.2 million shares traded.

Over the weekend, Tritech said it has dropped its proposed share placement of up to 110.8 million new ordinary shares after taking into consideration the volatility of its share price, among other factors.

Banking stocks were in the green across the board in the early morning trade. DBS added 0.2 per cent, or four cents to S$25.16, United Overseas Bank gained 0.6 per cent, or 16 cents to S$25.68, and OCBC Bank inched up 0.2 per cent, or two cents to S$10.73.

Other active index stocks included Golden Agri-Resources which gained 2.3 per cent, or 0.5 cent to 22.5 cents, while Jardine Matheson Holdings slipped 1.1 per cent, or 58 US cents to US$54.91.

IReit Global gained 0.6 per cent, or 0.5 cent to 80 Singapore cents. This comes after the Europe-focused real estate investment trust (Reit) announced that it has partnered Tikehau Capital to enter the Spanish market with an acquisition of four freehold office buildings in Madrid and Barcelona.

Separately, Miyoshi tumbled 11.8 per cent, or 0.4 cent to three Singapore cents, after its independent auditors, BDO, furnished a qualified opinion on the group's financial statements for the fiscal year ended August 2019. The qualified opinion is the result of insufficient appropriate audit evidence on certain balances.

Elsewhere in Asia, equities look set to kickstart the week with gains following a Wall Street rally on Friday, and better-than-expected US jobs data, Bloomberg reported.

Nikkei 225 futures rose 0.5 per cent, and Hang Seng Index futures climbed 0.3 per cent, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index gained 0.3 per cent.