Singapore stocks fall for second-day as lenders drag

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. fell 0.4 percent while DBS Group Holdings lost 0.8 percent.

SGX
SGX Logo. Reuters

Singapore stocks fell for a second day on Monday, dragged by financials such as OCBC Bank and DBS Group Holdings.

At 0600 GMT, the Straits Times Index fell 0.23 percent or 8 points to 3,323. It declined 0.71 percent on Friday, taking the year-to-date gains to 16 percent.

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. fell 0.4 percent while DBS Group Holdings lost 0.8 percent.

DBS, Southeast Asia's largest bank, will report earnings on August 4.

Property developer United Industrial Corp dropped 0.3 percent after its net profit fell 33 percent in the second-quarter due to increased expenses and fair value losses.

Among the gainers, Raffles Medical gained 0.7 percent after reporting a 0.5 percent increase in the second-quarter net profit. The company and said it expects the Group to remain profitable in 2017.

Shares in TT International were halted from trading pending the release of an announcement.

The Singapore-listed consumer electronics retailer company last week said that it had received a letter of demand from solicitors of unit Big Box Pte Ltd claiming repayment of S$50.75 million in alleged rental arrears.

About 1.6 billion shares worth S$656 million changed hands, with gainers outnumbering losers 182 to 171.

Meanwhile, Asian shares turned positive after solid Chinese data on Monday following a lacklustre start.

The official Chinese manufacturing and services purchasing managers' indices both slipped in July, but remained above the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction on a monthly basis.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan reversed early losses to rise 0.1 per cent.

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