STI was up 0.4% at 3,027.19 points by midday

Singapore shares were slightly higher, with telecommunication operator StarHub  among the biggest gainers.

Investors are closely watching the United States presidential election, with television networks projecting that Barack Obama had been re-elected to a second term in the White House, beating Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

The Straits Times Index was up 0.4% at 3,027.19 points, while MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.3% higher.

StarHub shares rose as much as 1.4% to $3.74, the highest in nearly a month. Nearly 1.9 million shares changed hands, 1.2 times the average full-day volume over the past 30 days.

DBS Vickers upgraded StarHub to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ and raised its target price to $4.00 from $3.67.

DBS said StarHub received $100 million of roll-out grant over the past two years, and the telco is likely to receive more grant of up to $150 million linked to migration of consumers to 100 megabits per second (Mbps) connections.

With 10-year Singapore government bonds yielding only 1.3%, StarHub offers yield spreads of 4.6%, which is the highest among telcos in DBS' regional coverage. It added that StarHub has more room to raise dividends.

Shares of Sembcorp Marine extended their fall after the oil rig builder reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings, triggering broker downgrades and cuts in target prices.

Sembcorp Marine shares eased as much as 1.6%. Its parent Sembcorp Industries, which also has energy and water businesses, lost as much as 2.9%.