Singapore stocks snapped 5-day decline on Friday and rose more than 1 percent, in line with a rally in regional equities as strong U.S. earnings and a step forward in the U.S. Congress on tax reform boosted global risk appetite.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.1 percent on Friday after the S&P 500 advanced 0.82 percent overnight.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a broad package of tax cuts sought by President Donald Trump, passing its first, if smallest, hurdle and providing a catalyst for fresh buying in risk assets.
The Straits Times Index gained 1.23 percent or 41 points to 3,382. It ended 0.81 percent lower on Thursday, taking the year-to-date performance to about 16 percent.
United Overseas Bank and Oversea-Chinese Bank advanced 1.5 percent each while DBS Group Holdings gained 3.6 percent.
Telecom stocks recovered from previous day's fall: StarHub was up 1.8 percent while Singapore Telecommunications rose 0.3 percent.
Spackman Entertainment ended unchanged at S$0.11 after the company said it has invested about US$225,000 as seed funding in the Korean film production firm The Makers Studio.
But Cruise operator Genting Hong Kong fell 2 percent after its unit Star NCLC entered has agreed to sell 5 million shares in Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings to third party investors for US$270.1 million.
Shares in Raffles Education fell as much as 12.5 percent to S$0.28 on Friday after billionaire shareholder Oei Hong Leong withdrew application to remove Founder and Chief Executive Chew Hua Seng from the firm.
About 2.3 billion shares worth S$1.3 billion changed hands, with gainers outnumbering losers 257 to 181.
