Singapore shares ended near a three-week high on Tuesday as a strong performance on Wall Street encouraged buying in banks and blue chips such as Keppel Corp.
"The market has briefly staged a fairly spirited technical rebound and we have seen the best of it today," said John Yap, director at Singapore brokerage UOB Kay Hian.
"My take is that we may resume sidewards trading in the next one, two days. I don't really see any fresh leads or developments on the cards that would perhaps lift the market higher then this."
The Straits Times index ended up 0.49 percent, or 9.00 points, at 1,844.54 - its highest closing level since March 11. It has risen 4.5 percent since the start of the year.
But the index was off its intra-day high of 1,861.64 as some profit-taking kicked in nearing the close of the session.
Trading on the Singapore bourse has been tepid in March as a lack of fresh leads and geopolitical concerns have weighed on sentiment. But some analysts are optimistic of a pick-up in activity when the first-quarter reporting season kicks off in April.
"We are already seeing real buying from serious investors. It's not just concentrated on blue chips," said Gabriel Yap, senior vice president at Kim Eng Securities.
In the broader market, gainers overwhelmed losers 225 to 93 as share turnover rose to about 741 million from Monday's 435 million.
DBS Group Holdings touched a high of S$14.40 before easing to settle flat at S$14.10. United Overseas Bank edged 0.76 percent higher to S$13.30, while OCBC rose 1.67 percent to S$12.20.
Singapore's three banks account for close to 40 percent of the index's weighting.
Keppel Corp, the world's largest shallow water oil rig builder, was up 2.1 percent at S$7.30.
Neptune Orient Lines rose 1.9 percent to S$2.18 in brisk trade of almost 13 million shares after the world's sixth-largest container shipping group said freight rates in the four weeks to March 5 were 16 percent higher than a year earlier.
China-based waste water treatment firm Bio-Treat was the most actively traded share, rising 3.4 percent to end at 90 Singapore cents on turnover of about 65 million shares.
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