SINGAPORE, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Singapore shares rose 0.77 percent on Wednesday, lifted by a rebound in property firms and tracking gains across Asian bourses, but the island’s key index may see limited upside in the afternoon.
By the midday break the Straits Times Index (STI) .FTSTI was up 22.70 points at 2,973.03. More than 226 million shares had changed hands.
“The STI, along with other Asian equities, have been quite resilient against U.S. and Europe because Asia is still a region of growth while the U.S. economy seems to be stalling and Europe faces uncertainties,” said Yeo Kee Yan, a retail market strategist at DBS Vickers.
But Yeo said he expects the STI’s gains to be capped at 2,980 points in the afternoon as investors remained cautious ahead of U.S. August jobs data, which will be announced on Friday.
Property firms rebounded on Wednesday after their shares took a beating due to measures by the Singapore government to cool the residential property market.
The FTSE ST Real Estate Index .FTFSTAS8600 rose 0.82 percent, outperforming the broader benchmark.
By the lunch break, City Developments (CTDM.SI) was up 1.5 percent at S$11.10. [ID:nSGE680023]
Singapore’s second-biggest telecom firm StarHub (STAR.SI) also outperformed the market, rising as much as 3.7 percent to a 22-month high on hopes the island’s new fibre-optic network may help the firm to get a bigger slice of the corporate data segment. [ID:nSGE68002U]
(Reporting by Charmian Kok)
