Singapore shares fell 0.5% by midday on Tuesday, tracking lower indexes across Asia on concerns that Ireland’s debt problems may spread to other euro zone countries.

By the lunch break, the Straits Times Index (STI) <.FTSTI> was down 16.32 points at 3,141.89. Total market volume was 803 million shares, up from 628.5 million shares on Monday.

“As we are drawing very close to the year end and the STI has already seen a pretty fantastic run, we’re seeing funds that are already in the money take their profits off the table,” said Carey Wong, an investment analyst at OCBC Investment Research.

“We’re facing worries of the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain) problems making a comeback, tensions in Korea. Our crystal ball looks quite hazy. Do investors want to take on new positions amid these uncertainties? I doubt so,” he added.

Wong said he expects the STI to trade in a range of 3,118 points to 3,169 points in the afternoon, but with a downside bias given that investors are looking to take profits for the year end.

Shares of Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC.SI) rose 1.9% to $9.81 to outperform the main index as firm October bank lending data supported expectations the bank will see strong loan growth in coming quarters.

OCBC’s third-quarter loan growth was the strongest among the three Singapore banks.

Shares of Singapore’s Suntec Real Estate Investment Trust (SUNT.SI) fell as much as 2.1% to their lowest level in nearly three months after the firm raised $428.8 million through a private placement of new units.

At midday, Suntec Reit’s shares were down 0.7% at $1.42, with over 20.5 million changing hands. The trust issued 313 million new units at $1.37 each, nearing the top end of $1.34 and $1.38 range it had set earlier, but lower than its previous trade of $1.43, with the placement 3.1 times oversubscribed.