Singapore, Malaysia markets rise; South Korea stocks dive 3% as Trump sets new tariff rates

[SINGAPORE] Singapore stocks opened slightly up on Friday (Aug 1), while Malaysia markets jumped and Taiwan slumped, following the announcement of US President Donald Trump’s global tariff rates.

Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia were hit by 19 per cent levies, while Taiwan will face a 20 per cent rate on its US exports. The global baseline rate will be kept to 10 per cent. This comes ahead of the Aug 1 deadline.

Singapore is likely to remain at the 10 per cent baseline rate, which Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said earlier was “not ideal” but something the country can “live with”.

The Straits Times Index had a modest gain of 0.2 per cent shortly after the market opened, up 8.52 points to reach 4182.29. This comes after a 2.3 per cent drop across six days from its record high of 4273.05 on Jul 24.

The trio of local banks were all marginally up at the open. DBS rose 0.1 per cent or S$0.06 to S$47.97. UOB was up 0.4 per cent or S$0.16 at S$36.35, and OCBC was up 0.5 per cent or S$0.08 at S$16.95. Pre-market open, OCBC announced that second-quarter profit fell 7 per cent to S$1.82 billion and declared a quarterly dividend of S$0.41 a share.

Among Asia markets, South Korea’s Kospi slumped about 3.9 per cent to 3127.79 points, but was last down 2.9 per cent at 3,150.32. Trump said on Wednesday that the US would charge a 15 per cent tariff on imports from South Korea.

Taiwan’s Taiex dived 1.6 per cent initially, but last dropped 0.9 per cent to 23,335.55 points, while Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur Composite Index was up 0.7 per cent at 1,523.27 points.

The Singapore dollar continued its week-long rise at 1.2975 per US dollar, up from 1.2768 on Jul 23. Spot gold traded 0.1 per cent higher around US$3,292 as at 9.16 am on Thursday.