Singapore shares fell by midday on Monday as investors booked profits after an almost 7 percent rally last week prompted by progess in Europe's debt deal, with most closely watching the plan knowing the crisis was far from over.

At 0500 GMT, the Straits Times Index (STI) was down 1.35 percent, or 39.6 points, at 2,866.12. Around 855.5 million shares worth S$777.1 million were traded, compared with 1.23 billion shares worth S$1.2 billion on Friday.

Asian shares fell and precious metals slipped as the dollar spiked to a three-month high against the yen following Japan's intervention in the currency markets.

MSCI's index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan retreated 1.71 percent, after posting its best week in nearly three years.

"We need to consider whether the previous week's rally was really warranted. I think there was a lot of short-covering," said Carey Wong, an analyst at OCBC Investment Research.

Some of the Singapore stocks that posted heavy losses on Monday were commodities firm Noble Group , rig builder Sembcorp Marine and palm oil producer Golden Agri-Resources .

Golden Agri fell 5.9 percent by midday to S$0.64, while Sembcorp Industrise dropped 5.2 percent to S$4.23.

Shares of casino operator Genting Singapore fell as much as 3.4 percent after surging last Friday on improved sentiment about the gaming market size in the city-state following the strong third-quarter results of rival Marina Bay Sands.

"I think it's mostly profit-taking. Genting's results will be out in two weeks' time, so the market is still a little bit divided about whether they continue to lose the share in the VIP market to MBS," Wong said.

"But we continue to believe in a stronger overall market in Singapore...As long as the whole market is growing, we are not too worried," he added.

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