Singapore shares lose steam; DBS extends losses as Q3 disappoints

Singapore stocks fell on Monday, dragged lower by DBS Bank after city-state's largest lender reported a profit fall amidst increased provisioning for bad loans.

sgx
Reuters

Singapore stocks fell on Monday, dragged lower by DBS Bank after city-state's largest lender reported a profit fall amidst increased provisioning for bad loans.

Asian stocks slipped after China's central bank chief warned again about excessive leverage and U.S. President Donald Trump ramped up his tough rhetoric against North Korea.

The losses in Asian shares came despite gains in Wall Street on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 gaining 0.31 percent and the Nasdaq adding 0.74 percent.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.7 percent to 552.8 from Friday's top of 557.9 which was the highest since November 2007.

At 0350 GMT, the Straits Times Index shed 0.27 percent or 9 points to 3,373. It ended 0.05 percent higher on Friday, taking the year-to-date performance to about 17 percent.

DBS Group Holdings fell 1.3 percent after its third-quarter net profit fell 23 percent on the back of increased provisioning for bad loans for the troubled oil and gas services sector.

Other lenders such as Overseas-Chinese Banking Corp lost 1.2 percent and United Overseas Bank dropped 0.2 percent.

Billionaire Peter Lim backed real estate services provider Rowsley lost 1.5 percent after it swung to a third-quarter loss, owing to a $7.9 million fair value loss.

Food and beverage maker BreadTalk Group reported a 22.2 percent jump in third-quarter profit as the group continued its focus on profitable segments while exiting underperforming businesses. However, its shares fell about 3 percent.

But gold producer CNMC Goldmine Holdings gained about 2 percent after it completed the construction of its carbonin-leach plant at its Sokor gold field in Kelantan, Malaysia.

About 928 million shares worth S$532 million changed hands, with losers outnumbering gainers 186 to 150.

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