Singapore Stocks-Edges up on U.S. corporate outlook, Wilmar up

* Index up 0.1 percent, seen rising in 2nd half of day

* Wilmar rises 2.4 pct on MSCI weighting boost

By Eveline Danubrata

SINGAPORE, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Singapore shares rebounded from two days of losses, rising 0.1 percent as investors were encouraged by strong U.S. corporate earnings which could further bolster Asian markets.

At the lunch break, the Straits Times Index (STI) .FTSTI was up 4.14 points at 2,927.50. More than 234 million shares had changed hands.

U.S. home building and industrial output both increased in July, and Wall Street rose overnight on higher-than-expected earnings from two U.S. retail giants and a $39 billion takeover bid in the farm sector. [ID:nN17118370] [ID:nN17211536]

"The markets overnight were bolstered by better-than-expected U.S. industrial production figures. I think the markets globally had been a bit overly focused on the negative news over the last few weeks," said David Cohen, an economist at Action Economics.

"Although there is plenty of uncertainties clouding the outlook, but I think the global economy can escape a double dip, and in that context the Asian economies should be able to continue posting positive growth even if the pace is somewhat slowing," he said.

Shares of the world's largest listed palm oil plantation firm, Wilmar International (WLIL.SI), rose as much as 2.4 percent after index provider MSCI (MSCI.N) raised the weighting on the company on its Singapore index.

UBS said in a report Wilmar now accounts for 5.3 percent of MSCI Singapore index from 3.6 percent, ahead of the broker's expectation of 5.1 percent.[ID:nSGE67H04I] (Reporting by Eveline Danubrata; Editing by Saeed Azhar)