Singapore - Singapore shares dropped sharply Thursday, cooling off from the euphoria over Barack Obama's election as US president the day before as investors expected a recession to hit.

The Straits Times Index (STI) dropped 49.62 points, or 2.66 per cent, to 1819.2 on profit-taking pressure.

A total of 1.12 billion shares were traded on the Singapore Exchange, and 146 were gainers and 308 were losers.

The market has been sentimentally driven and had been on a yo-yo trend with a day of gains followed by a day of losses this week, economists and market analysts said.

But economic fundamentals remain weak and were keep share prices under pressure, they added. (dpa)