barring columnar: STOCKS NEWS SINGAPORE-Index little changed, Noble falls

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Singapore shares were little changed by midday as weakness

in commodity stocks such as Noble Group was offset by

small gains in market heavyweight Singapore Telecommunications

The market lacked inspiration from Wall Street, where the

S&P 500 index eased slightly after an eight-day run of gains.

The Straits Times Index was down 0.11 percent at

3,271.27 points. The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside

Japan was up 0.7 percent.

Noble fell 2.8 percent to S$1.215, while SingTel gained 0.87

percent to S$3.48. Noble was suspended from Argentina's grains

media report.

"The fall is a knee-jerk reaction to the suspension but it

is unlikely to be material," said a trader.

"The index seems to be stuck in the range of 3250-3280,"

said OCBC investment analyst Carey Wong, adding that the market

is awaiting results from property firms for direction.

Property firms have been in play recently after the

Singapore government introduced new measures to cool the

residential property market.

The move triggered selling in most property stocks, but the

larger ones such as CapitaLand have rebounded.

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