Singapore shares open lower on Tuesday; STI down 0.44%

SINGAPORE shares opened lower on Tuesday with the Straits Times Index losing 14.55 points or 0.44 per cent to 3,265.54 as at 9.04am.

Losers outnumbered gainers 79 to 57, after 179.4 million securities worth about S$60.8 million changed hands.

Medtecs International was the most traded counter by volume in the morning, rising S$0.007 or 13.5 per cent to S$0.059 after 14.1 million shares were traded. Another active security was Disa Limited, unchanged at S$0.003 on 14 million shares traded.

Ntegrator International was up S$0.001 or 6.7 per cent to S$0.016 after 4.3 million shares changed hands. Its shares had surged on Monday, which prompted a Singapore Exchange query.

Thai Beverage was the most traded stock by value, down S$0.015 or 1.8 per cent to S$0.835 on 9.7 million shares traded.

All three local banks lost ground in early trade, as DBS fell S$0.08 or 0.3 per cent to S$26.30, OCBC lost S$0.04 or 0.4 per cent to S$11.13, while UOB decreased S$0.10 or 0.4 per cent to S$26.55.

US markets were closed on Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr Day.

Market activity was thin in Europe due to the US holiday. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was down about 0.1 per cent, after ending at a record high on Friday on optimism around US-European Union trade talks.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei index opened slightly lower, with investors on the sidelines over a lack of trading pegs a day after the benchmark index posted its best finish in nearly 16 months.

The key Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.15 per cent or 36.29 points to 24,047.22 in early trade while the broader Topix index was down 0.10 per cent or 1.69 points at 1,742.47.