Nagging worries over Asia's bird flu outbreak drove Singapore shares to a three-week low on Wednesday, led by banks such as DBS Group Holdings after a sector downgrade.
The key Straits Times Index finished down 0.57 percent, or 10.49 points, at 1,834.64 - a closing level not seen since January 15 although it was still up four percent from the start of the year.
The STI's losses reflected weakness in key regional bourses such as Japan and South Korea.
Analysts said investors were waiting to get a clearer indication of company prospects from key firms such as Singapore's three banks when they report quarterly earnings in the coming weeks.
"It's probably a healthy correction," said Christopher Wong, fund manager at Aberdeen Asset Management, which manages about US$4.5 billion worth of regional equities in Asia, excluding Japan.
"Once there is a better feel of what the outlook is, we should expect the market to go up over a longer period of time," he added.
Among losers were DBS Group Holdings Ltd and United Overseas Bank Ltd (UOB) - Singapore's top two banks - after Citigroup downgraded the sector to underweight on the view that it had reached the peak of the current investment cycle.
DBS fell 1.97 percent to S$14.90 and UOB shed 1.43 percent to S$13.80. But OCBC was up 0.81 percent at S$12.40.
The broader market was weak with losers leading gainers 203 to 127 as turnover rose to around 986 million shares from Tuesday's 981 million.
Smaller-cap shipping firms were the flavour of the day and dominated top actives on prospects of healthy earnings as freight rates were seen rising with a pick-up in global trade and supply of ships remained tight.
Topping actives was Cosco Corp, which rose 7.59 percent to S$0.85 on a brisk turnover of 68 million shares.
DBS Vickers Securities raised its 12-month price target for the stock to 96 Singapore cents on the back of higher contributions from its China shipyard and robust dry bulk carrier rates.
Jaya Holdings, a Singapore-based support vessel specialist, also gained 4.6 percent to 90.5 Singapore cents.
Nera Telecommunications ended 8.77 percent higher at 62 Singapore cents after the telecoms group said it would pay a special dividend of two Singapore cents a share despite posting a 38.2 percent drop in 2003 net profit.