Singapore shares closed 0.57 percent lower on Thursday with few fresh leads to spur investor interest, dealers said. The blue chip Straits Times Index fell 15.13 points to 2,657.44. Volume totalled 1.88 billion shares worth 1.15 billion Singapore dollars (816 million US) and there were 90 rising issues, 404 losers while 751 were even.
The market has priced in strong economic recovery and any release of data that disappoint is going to punctuate the uptrend line with blips, analysts from a local brokerage said in a report. Telecom operator StarHub was 14 cents lower at 2.03 dollars after losing the rights to host the highly popular English Premier League (EPL) football matches in Singapore to rival Singapore Telecommunications.
"We think the stock will struggle to perform over the coming quarters given the high level of uncertainty over subscriber stability across business lines in the coming one to two years from the EPL loss and the national broadband network launch in the second quarter of 2010," Goldman Sachs said in a note. Singapore Telecommunications rose three cents to 3.28 while Singapore Airlines fell 24 cents to 13.54 dollars. DBS Group Holdings sank 26 cents to 13.02 while United Overseas Bank was off 22 cents to 16.56.