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Roundup: Singapore stocks end up 1.51 pct

Xinhua, August 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

Singapore shares closed 1.51 percent higher on Monday, as investors took comfort in the robust U.S. jobs data.

Singapore bourse will be closed on Tuesday for National Day holiday. The U.S. Labor Department on Aug.5 said nonfarm payrolls in the U.S. rose by a seasonally-adjusted 255,000 in July, higher than the average forecast of merely 179,000 jobs by the Wall Street. However, most analysts said the data signaled that the U.S. economy, while stable, is not yet strong enough to justify higher interest rates.

DBS Group Research said "we maintain our view that the Straits Times Index has likely seen the high for the year at 2,960 points with eventual downside objective of 2,714 points. The short-term bounce that we earlier said should occur off the 2,800 points to 2,830 points support started late last week."

Singapore's benchmark Straits Times Index jumped 42.61 points to 2,870.78 points. Trading volume was 938 million shares worth 1.04 billion Singapore dollars. Advancers outnumbered decliners 226 to 186, while 494 stocks did not move.

DBS Group Holdings rose 1.4 percent to 15.04 Singapore dollars. The Southeast Asia's biggest bank reported a 6 percent drop in second-quarter net profit to 1.05 billion Singapore dollars from 1.12 billion Singapore dollars a year earlier, hit by a sharp jump in provisions for bad loans as firms in the oil and gas services sector struggle to service debt.

DBS said bad debt charges more than doubled to 366 million Singapore dollars. Its exposure to oil and gas companies excluding Swiber stood at 23 billion Singapore dollars. Swiber, a Singapore-listed oil services firm, has been placed under judicial management recently.

ISOTeam rose 2.4 percent to 42.5 Singapore cents. It has secured 13 new private and public sector contracts worth 20.11 million Singapore dollars, including its maiden project in Myanmar and its second renewable energy installation project in Singapore. In Myanmar, ISOTeam was awarded its first painting project worth 110,000 Singapore dollars.

Among top gainers, Jardine Cycle and Carriage rose 3.4 percent to 43.10 Singapore dollars, while Great Eastern Holdings became one of the top losers by falling 0.7 percent to 21.26 Singapore dollars. (1 U.S. dollar equals to 1.35 Singapore dollars) Endit