Win Streak Likely To End For Singapore Stock Market

The Singapore stock market has moved higher in consecutive trading days, gathering more than a dozen points or 0.4 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 3,070-point plateau although it may run out of steam on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on sinking crude oil prices and on the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses are expected to open in similar fashion.

The STI finished slightly higher on Friday following gains from the financial shares and mixed performances from the properties and technology stocks.

For the day, the index gained 6.69 points or 0.22 percent to finish at the daily high of 3,071.23 after trading as low as 3,054.60. Volume was 2.86 billion shares worth 2.62 billion Singapore dollars. There were 251 decliners and 248 gainers.

Among the actives, Ascendas REIT spiked 1.30 percent, while CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust skidded 0.99 percent, City Developments perked 0.55 percent, Comfort DelGro dropped 0.65 percent, DBS Group collected 0.57 percent, Genting Singapore sank 0.68 percent, Hongkong Land plummeted 2.79 percent, Keppel Corp rose 0.19 percent, Mapletree Commercial Trust and Mapletree Logistics Trust both soared 1.44 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation gained 0.26 percent, SATS lost 0.51 percent, SembCorp Industries plunged 2.15 percent, Singapore Airlines tumbled 1.73 percent, Singapore Exchange added 0.30 percent, Singapore Press Holdings shed 0.52 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering advanced 0.53 percent, SingTel jumped 1.25 percent, United Overseas Bank gathered 0.78 percent, Wilmar International climbed 1.23 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding tanked 1.99 percent and CapitaLand, Dairy Farm International and Thai Beverage were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is firmly negative as the major averages opened lower on Friday and stayed that way throughout the session.

The Dow shed 166.44 points or 0.48 percent to finish at 34,584.88, while the NASDAQ sank 137.96 points or 0.91 percent to end at 15,043.97 and the S&P 500 fell 40.76 points or 0.91 percent to close at 4,432.99. For the week, the Dow eased 0.1 percent, the NASDAQ lost 0.5 percent and the S&P fell 0.6 percent.

The weakness on Wall Street came as traders looked ahead to next week’s highly anticipated monetary policy meeting from the Federal Reserve. The Fed is widely expected to leave monetary policy unchanged but could address the outlook for its asset purchase program.

The minutes of the Fed’s last meeting signaled the central bank might begin scaling back asset purchases by the end of the year. With recent disappointing economic data suggesting the Fed could delay, traders will pay close attention to the wording of the post-meeting statement.

Crude oil futures settled lower Friday on reports crude supply is being restored after hurricanes Ida and Nicholas had impacted production in the Gulf of Mexico. A firm dollar also led to the decline in crude oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for October fell $0.64 or 0.9 percent at $71.97 a barrel. WTI crude futures gained more than 3 percent for the week.