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Roundup: Singapore stocks end up 0.94 pct

Xinhua, September 16, 2015 Adjust font size:

Singapore shares closed 0.94 percent higher on Wednesday after U.S. stocks rose overnight ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy meeting.

Investors braced for the possibility of the first interest rate hike in the United States in almost a decade. The Federal Reserve will begin its two-day meeting later in the day, and U.S. economic data published overnight did little to either support or douse expectations of interest rate hike. Data showed healthy growth in U.S. consumer spending although retail sales for August were slightly below market expectations.

DBS Group Research expected equity markets will remain in a choppy holding pattern as investors await the outcome of the Federal Reserve's decision on interest rates.

The benchmark Straits Times Index rose 26.80 points to close at 2,868.74 points. Trading volume was 1.33 billion shares worth 1.1 billion Singapore dollars. Advancers outnumbered decliners 275 to 126, while 536 stocks closed unchanged.

Hyflux Limited rose 5.2 percent to 71 Singapore cents. It and its partner Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has been chosen by the Singapore government to build a new waste-to-energy (WTE) plant at western part of the city state. The plant will be Singapore's sixth, and the most energy-efficient plant. The project, valued at about 750 million Singapore dollars, is expected to be completed by 2019. Hyflux and MHI will respectively hold 75 percent and 25 percent of the shares in the project company.

CapitaLand closed flat at 2.77 Singapore dollars. The largest property developer in Southeast Asia announced that it has entered into a joint venture with Thien Duc Trading-Construction to develop a site in Ho Chi Minh City's District 2, its seventh residential project in Vietnam. CapitaLand planned to develop the site into a high-end residential project with about 1,000 homes. The development will have an estimated total project value of 150 million U.S. dollars.

Among the top gainers, Jardine Matheson rose 2 percent to 47.12 U.S. dollars while DBS Group dropped 0.3 percent to 17.43 Singapore dollars. (1 U.S. dollar equals to 1.40 Singapore dollars) Endi