UOB leads Singapore blue chip losses on lower Q4 earnings, Wall Street’s tumble

[SINGAPORE] Shares of UOB hit a one-month low in early trade on Tuesday (Feb 24) after the lender posted a 7 per cent decline in fourth quarter profit.

As at 9.13 am, the counter fell as much as 4.6 per cent or S$1.80 to S$37, with over 1.7 million shares changing hands. This marked the stock’s lowest price in over a month, as it last traded lower on Jan 22.

By 9.45 am, it had pared down some losses and was trading at S$37.15, still down 4.3 per cent or S$1.65, with more than 3.1 million shares transacted.

This came as UOB’s Q4 net profit for the quarter ended Dec 31 fell 7 per cent to S$1.41 billion, from S$1.52 billion in the year-ago period, amid margin pressures from lower benchmark rates.

UOB’s peers DBS and OCBC retreated 0.9 per cent or S$0.51 to S$57.64 and 2 per cent or S$0.43 to S$21.26 respectively.

Among other ST Index components, ST Engineering, Jardine Matheson, ThaiBev were down 1.8 to over 2 per cent after the Dow Jones plunged 822 points or 1.66 per cent overnight on Wall Street.

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The lower performance missed the S$1.44 billion consensus estimate of a Bloomberg survey.