Singapore shares rose to the highest in about 16 months, after encouraging economic data from China and the United States, with property firms CapitaMalls Asia Ltd and Hongkong Land Holdings Ltd leading the gains.
The Straits Times Index advanced as much as 1 percent to 3,139.40 points, the highest since early August 2011. MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.2 percent higher.
Shares of CapitaMalls Asia rose as much as 2.8 percent to S$2.01, the highest since February 2011. More than 8.6 million shares were traded, 1.2 times the average full-day volume over the past 30 days.
Nomura sees limited upside to the valuation of CapitaLand Ltd's residential development business at the current level, and advised investors to buy CapitaMalls Asia, a unit of CapitaLand which owns, develops and manages shopping malls.
"We believe it is more attractive to invest directly in CMA to maximise returns from its core earnings recovery and potential capital recycling opportunities," Nomura said.
Shares of Interra Resources Ltd gained as much as 5.2 percent on volume of 20.3 million shares, more than double the average full-day volume over the past 30 days. The share price was 5.3 times the level at the start of the year.
OCBC Investment Research said the share price surge was fuelled by Interra's exposure to Myanmar and possible significant oil and gas discoveries in the country, as well as the potential of its exploratory block in Indonesia.
OCBC said it believes the company, which recently completed a rights issue, has enough cash to fund its requirements in 2013, barring significant discoveries. It added that Interra shares could be worth S$0.441.
