, Columnist
Singapore Banks Could Use the Skepticism
Asset quality is still showing no sign of getting better.
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It took an earnings announcement from the smallest of Singapore's banks to shake the edifice of optimism that investors had built around all three of them.
United Overseas Bank Ltd.'s 5.5 percent profit growth in the June quarter was better than what analysts had expected. Yet UOB's shares fell 2.2 percent on Friday (they closed 0.3 percent lower on Monday), dragging down stocks of bigger rivals -- DBS Group Holdings Ltd. and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp.