It was rather quiet on the Singapore bourse - as was the case in many other Asian markets on Monday - with the key Straits Times Index finishing on a flat note at 2,511.21, up by 1.57 points or 0.06 per cent.

A wait-and-see stance was the dominant theme, even as investors breathed a sigh of relief that last Thursday's rout in US tech stocks did not spill over to the following day (last Friday), with Wall Street closing lower in an orderly fashion; this was partly owing to the absence of untoward shocks in the US jobs data that was released on Friday.

The tight range trading on the Singapore market comes ahead of the Labour Day holiday in the US markets.

The US tech sector led one of the best August stock market performances on record, and now it is leading a volatile opening in September. The new bull market had one of its first major tests last week and the Standard & Poor's 500 retreated from a record high.

Top Glove Corporation has submitted an audit report on its labour practices towards its migrant workers to the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Malaysian glove maker said in a bourse filing on Monday. The report was prepared by an independent consultant following virtual interviews with about 1,100 of Top Glove's migrant and local workers, and is part of the company's attempt to resolve a detention order on import, or Withhold Release Order (WRO), issued by the CBP to two Top Glove subsidiaries in July.

KrisEnergy has been granted a fourth extension to its debt moratorium, the upstream oil and gas company said in a filing to the Singapore Exchange on Monday. The moratorium granted in September last year will now apply until Oct 27. The firm is seeking protection from its creditors, which include DBS Bank, Keppel Shipyard, Rubicon Vantage International and holders of the various notes the company has issued, as it tries to restructure a debt to the tune of US$476.8 million.

The Sembcorp Marine (SMM) rights issue of shares to recapitalise the company was undersubscribed, with valid acceptances and excess applications received for 9.4 billion rights shares, or 90.2 per cent of the nearly 10.5 billion rights shares available. According to application results on Monday, SMM's parent company Sembcorp Industries (SCI) subscribed for 7.5 billion or 72 per cent of the available shares by writing off a S$1.5 billion loan it extended to SMM in June 2019.

China Life Insurance (Singapore), which normally sells its insurance products through banks and financial companies, now plans to hire more than 500 consultants in Singapore over the next five years to provide a more dedicated service to its clients. The company launched a project called Agency Channel on Monday, which is intended to serve as a bridge between Singapore and China in bringing insurtech solutions to the market.

Catalist-listed Axington is extending the offer period for its rights issue, the professional advisory services group announced late on Sunday night. Among other things, the deadline for the acceptance of and payment for the rights shares, as well as the application and payment for the excess rights shares was set for 5pm on Sept 9, or 9.30pm that day for electronic applications.

Source: SGX Masnet, The Business Times, Bloomberg, Channel NewsAsia, Reuters, PSR