Singapore stocks gain for third day; OCBC Bank hits record high

Singapore stocks gained for a third day on Friday, led by lenders such as Overseas-Chinese Banking Corp on strong results while positive Asian cues also boosted risk appetite.

SGX
SGX Logo. Reuters

Singapore stocks gained for a third day on Friday, led by lenders such as Overseas-Chinese Banking Corp on strong results while positive Asian cues also boosted risk appetite.

Stocks in Asia extended gains after a batch of strong earnings from Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon.com.

Japan's Nikkei gained 0.6 percent while South Korea's Kospi rose 0.2 percent and Australian shares rose 0.2 percent. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was flat in dollar terms.

The Straits Times Index rose 0.9 percent or 30 points to 3,386. It ended 0.37 percent higher on Thursday, taking the year-to-date performance to about 17 percent.

Overseas-Chinese Banking Corp rose 1.6 percent to a record high after the city-state's No. 2 lender posted a 12 percent increase in quarterly net profit on Thursday.

DBS Group Holdings, Singapore's biggest bank, and smaller peer United Overseas Bank report results next month.

Singapore Exchange gained 1 percent after its chief told Bloomberg that his company is still in the running to win a listing of the shares of oil giant Aramco.

Global Logistic Properties, which was bought by a Chinese consortium for S$16 billion, rose 0.9 percent after its independent financial adviser has deemed a proposed privatisation to be fair and reasonable.

But CDL Hospitality fell 1.2 percent after posting a 3 percent fall in distribution per stapled security, reflecting the effects of a rights issue completed in August.

Indofood Agri Resources, a maker of edible oils and fats products in Indonesia, lost 1 percent despite posting a 37 percent fall in third-quarter profit.

The Myanmar-based conglomerate Yoma Strategic Holdings was unchanged at S$0.59 after it reported a near 57 percent slump in second-quarter net profit citing the absence of the fair value gain from the telecommunication towers investment.

About 1.9 billion shares worth S$1.3 billion changed hands, with gainers outnumbering losers 236 to 202.

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