1st LD Writethru: Singapore stocks end down 1.71 pct

Singapore shares closed 1.71 percent lower on Friday, after the Bank of Japan (BOJ) announced fresh stimulus measures to boost economy.

BOJ modestly increased purchases of exchange-traded funds, but maintained its base money target at 80 trillion yen (772.3 billion U.S, dollars) and the pace of purchases of other assets, including Japanese government bonds. The central bank also held at 0.1 percent the interest it charges to a portion of excess reserves financial institutions leave with the central bank.

Singapore's benchmark Straits Times Index fell 49.93 points to 2,868.69 points. Trading volume was 1.2 billion shares worth 1.48 billion Singapore dollars. Decliners outnumbered advancers 311 to 131, while 463 stocks did not move.

Among top actives, DBS Group Holdings sank 3 percent to 15.41 Singapore dollars. The Singapore's biggest lender said it expects to recover about half of its 700 million Singapore dollar exposure to the collapse of Swiber Holdings, a big Singapore-listed oilfield services firm. Swiber became the biggest Singapore business so far to fall victim to oil's slump, after it said on Thursday it had filed for liquidation.

DBS has exposure to Swiber through loans, bonds and off-balance sheet items. The bank said it anticipated booking a shortfall charge of about 150 million Singapore dollars.

Chiwayland International fell 1.6 percent to 12.3 Singapore cents. It has entered into a joint venture to develop its first science residential project on a 13,270 square meter land parcel in Jianghan, one of the urban core districts of Wuhan. This builds on to current pipeline of four projects in Suzhou and one in Nanjing.

Among top gainers, Jardine Cycle and Carriage rose 3.5 percent to 39.23 Singapore dollars, whereas UOB became one of the top losers by falling 2.7 percent to 18.20 Singapore dollars.(1 U.S. dollar equals to 103.4 yen and 1.35 Singapore dollars) Endit