Singapore shares powered ahead to a fresh 14-month high due to overnight Wall Street gains, although volumes remained lower than average.
The Straits Times Index (STI) rose 23.79 points or 0.72 per cent to 3,340.7, its highest close since May 29 last year.
It was also the STI's biggest one-day gain in 1 1/2 weeks, after rising 24.23 points on July 11.
However, market turnover was only $929 million, down on the past year's daily average of $1.11 billion.
Regional shares were driven higher by Wall Street's overnight gains as investors in the United States focused on positive economic news and earnings releases rather than on geopolitical risks.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.8 per cent but the Nikkei 225 stock index in Tokyo lost 0.1 per cent.
At home, flight services company Sats fell two cents or 0.6 per cent to $3.16. On Tuesday, it reported that first-quarter earnings fell 6.3 per cent to $43.3 million amid pressures on regional aviation and rising manpower costs.
"Sats' first-quarter results came in below our expectations," said OCBC Investment Research.
"This was due to lower operating margin mainly caused by higher staff costs, and lower contributions from associates and joint ventures on the back of muted Asian cargo volumes."
OCBC added: "Since initiatives to create operating leverage are multi-year processes, we are not too worried about the current fall in operating margin."
It maintained its "hold" call on Sats with a lower target price of $3.20, from $3.23 previously.
Sino Construction, a China-based construction and civil-engineering company which wants to diversify its business, fell 2.5 cents or 8.8 per cent to 26 cents. The drop occurred in only about 90 minutes of trade in the morning.
Sino Construction shares had been halted from trade on Monday and Tuesday.
On Tuesday night, it said that it had signed a conditional sale-and-purchase agreement to acquire a 52 per cent stake in Jems Exploration for US$20 million (S$25 million). Australia-based Jems is undertaking a coal-development project in Queensland, Australia.
Trading resumed yesterday morning, only to be halted again at around 10.30am.
Sino Construction said the halt was "pending (a) further announcement".
As of 8pm last night, there had not yet been an announcement.
This article by The Straits Times was published in MyPaper, a free, bilingual newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.