Singapore stocks end lower; STI down 0.2%

[SINGAPORE] Stocks on the local bourse closed slightly lower on Tuesday (Apr 29) after US President Donald Trump’s administration said it will move to reduce the impact of his automotive tariffs.

The benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) ended 0.2 per cent or 6.6 points lower at 3,805.18. Across the broader market, gainers outnumbered losers 259 to 214 after 968.6 million securities worth S$1.3 billion changed hands.

The top gainer on the STI was Sembcorp. The counter rose 2.6 per cent or S$0.17 to S$6.62. The biggest decliner was Wilmar International, which slid 3.8 per cent or S$0.12 to S$3.02.

The trio of local banks ended mixed. was down 0.5 per cent or S$0.22 at S$42.08 and UOB fell 0.2 per cent or S$0.06 to finish at S$34.36 while OCBC rose 1 per cent or S$0.15 to S$15.98.

Elsewhere in the region, key indices ended mostly higher. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.9 per cent, the Kospi was up 0.7 per cent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index increased 0.2 per cent. However, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI lost 0.4 per cent.

The mixed performance comes amid heightened market scrutiny of US-China tariff tensions.

Blame and threats embedded in US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s recent remarks stymie a path to conciliatory US-China tariff talks, said Vishnu Varathan, head of macro research at Mizuho Securities.

He called Bessent’s proposition that it is “up to China to de-escalate because they sell five ties more to us than we sell to them” as “glaringly counter-productive, ascribing blame on Beijing”.

“Whereas Beijing may quite rightly assess that rushing to acquiesce the aggressor (on tariffs) inadvertently, but damningly, concedes the upper hand to Washington – a strategic error that Beijing will avoid,” added Varathan.

He also pointed out that the European Central Bank (ECB) may be quicker than the Federal Reserve to acknowledge the income shocks arising from tariffs. As a result, the ECB could adopt a more dovish stance sooner – potentially between mid-2025 and Q3 2025 – thereby “creating a temporary window of Fed-ECB divergence”.