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Roundup: Singapore stocks end down 1.29 pct

Xinhua, August 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

Singapore shares closed 1.29 percent lower on Friday, after U.S. stocks tumbled overnight due to growing concerns over global growth.

Investors had been struggling in recent sessions with a plunge in commodity markets, upheaval in global currency markets and a growing sense that the U.S. Federal Reserve remains too uncomfortable with the health of the U.S. economy to raise interest rates at its meeting next month.

The Federal Reserve policy meeting minutes last month showed officials are divided on when to raise interest rates, seen as a possibility as soon as September. Some Federal Reserve officials pointed to slowing growth in China's once-booming economy as a reason for caution.

Singapore's benchmark Straits Times Index fell 38.77 points to 2,971.01 points. Trading volume was 1.94 billion shares worth 1.54 billion Singapore dollars. Decliners outnumbered advancers 368 to 129, while 442 stocks did not move.

Among top actives, Noble Group rose 3.5 percent to 44.5 Singapore cents. Fitch Ratings believed Noble can generate positive cash flow from operations (CFO) in second half this year even though Noble's second-quarter CFO remained negative at minus 399 million U.S. dollars. This is already smaller than minus 566 million U.S. dollars in first-quarter, and mostly driven by the 707 million U.S. dollar increase in working capital. With this increase, the net working capital scale reached a record high of 6. 89 billion U.S. dollars.

Perennial Real Estate Holdings shed 2 percent to 98.5 Singapore cents. It has entered into a 55-45 joint venture with Shangri-La Asia to develop a 49,874 square meter site into a prime integrated mixed-use development located in the airport district of Accra, the capital of Ghana. Perennial will acquire a 55 percent stake in the prime site from Shangri-La, currently the owner of the site, for a consideration of 15.2 million U.S. dollars. The total development cost for the project is estimated to be over 250 million U.S. dollars.

Among top gainers, M1 Limited rose 2.4 percent to 2.94 Singapore dollars, while Jardine Matheson became one of the top losers by falling 1.3 percent to 51.13 U.S. dollars. (1 U.S. dollar equals to 1.41 Singapore dollars) Endi