Singapore stocks edged slightly lower on Friday, tracking weakness in other regional markets but gains in China-based Yangzijiang Shipbuilding after it posted a 208 percent jump in third-quarter profit kept losses in check.
Asian shares slipped on Friday on uncertainty about U.S. tax reforms.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.2 percent. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 lost 0.38 percent while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.58 percent.
U.S. Republican Senators said they want to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s, Reuters reported.
The Straits Times Index edged up 0.11 percent or 4 points to 3,420. It ended 0.08 percent higher on Thursday, taking the year-to-date performance to about 19 percent.
United Overseas Bank dropped 0.6 percent, DBS Group Holdings lost 1.1 percent while Oversea-Chinese Bank declined 0.8 percent.
Shares in Noble Group fell as much as 11 percent to S$0.24 on Friday after the embattled commodity trader reported a third-quarter loss of $1.17 billion and warned that the operating environment remains challenging.
Among the gainers, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding rose 5 percent to S$1.635, the second- most heavily traded stock on the Singapore Exchange.
Sembcorp Marine added 1.3 percent after its unit Sembcorp Marine Rigs & Floaters has signed a letter of intent with Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil for an engineering, procurement and construction contract estimated at US$490 million (S$665.8 million).
Warehouse operator Global Logistic Properties reported a 34 percent jump in second-quarter profit, helped in part by the foreign exchange gains. But its shares were unchanged at S$3.32.
About 2.2 billion shares worth S$1.3 billion changed hands, with losers outnumbering gainers 236 to 206.
