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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StanX Long who wrote (63566)	5/9/2002 2:39:41 AM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Straits Times Index gets boost from Wall Street gains Thursday May 9, 1:19 PM sg.news.yahoo.com SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore shares were firm by midday on Thursday as Wall Street's hefty gains cheered technology stocks and banks, but some investors doubted the rally would last. "Fund managers are not increasing their exposure to this market, waiting for earnings to back up the earlier run-up. They are neutral now," said Najeeb Jarhom, director at Fraser-AMMB Research. The key Straits Times Index was up 0.85 percent or 14.83 points at 1,750.26 at the break. The index is up 7.8 percent in 2002 but has been constrained at the 1,750-1,760 line in the past few weeks. "Technical resistance has proven to be very strong. Every time the index goes above 1,750, people sell," said Jarhom. In the broader market, gainers beat losers by 168 to 81 as volume rose to 337 million shares from 272 million at the break on Wednesday. Tech stocks led gainers as the electronics sector index rose 1.61 percent. Computer peripherals maker Creative Technology added 1.95 percent to S$20.90 and electronics contract maker Venture Manufacturing gained 1.81 percent to S$16.90. Chartered Semiconductor was up 2.7 percent at S$4.62, while systems integrator Datacraft Asia rose three percent to US$2.06. Among banks, DBS Group Holdings rose 2.2 percent to S$14.20, United Overseas Bank gained 1.4 percent to S$14.90 and OCBC Bank added 0.75 percent to S$13.50. Singapore Telecommunications edged down 0.66 percent to S$1.51 after reporting an 18.7 percent slide in 2002 net profit to S$1.63 billion ($906 million) before the market opened. The results were at the low end of expectations, dragged down by hefty goodwill writedowns for Australia's Optus, which SingTel bought last year for US$9 billion. Analysts said they expect Asia's fourth-largest telecoms player to post even lower profits in 2003 as the full impact of the Optus acquisition would be reflected. Year-on-year growth in net profit may only be seen in 2004 onwards, they said. Roly International Holdings soared 5.1 percent to S$0.515 on demand for the Hong Kong initial public offering of its shipping unit Linmark Group <0915>. The home decor firm topped volumes with 19.7 million shares traded.