Renewed Support Anticipated For Singapore Shares

The Singapore stock market headed south again on Thursday, one day after snapping the three-day slide in which it had stumbled almost 75 points or 2.5 percent. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 2,920-point plateau although it’s expected to bounce higher again on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets calls for a technical rebound after heavy losses and highly speculative trading in the previous session. The European markets were mixed and the U.S. bourses were up and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The STI finished sharply lower on Thursday following losses from the financial shares, property stocks and industrial issues.

For the day, the index dropped 38.33 points or 1.30 percent to finish at 2,920.30 after trading between 2,911.75 and 2,930.75. Volume was 3.31 billion shares worth 1.47 billion Singapore dollars. There were 380 decliners and 137 gainers.

Among the actives, SembCorp Industries plummeted 3.49 percent, while Ascendas REIT plunged 3.17 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding tanked 2.91 percent, Thai Beverage surged 2.50 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust tumbled 2.49 percent, Comfort DelGro skidded 2.45 percent, Keppel Corp retreated 2.15 percent, Singapore Exchange declined 2.09 percent, Wilmar International surrendered 2.02 percent, Singapore Airlines sank 1.68 percent, SATS and CapitaLand both dropped 1.53 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation shed 1.52 percent, DBS Group weakened 1.43 percent, United Overseas Bank lost 1.35 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering fell 1.06 percent, Mapletree Commercial Trust slid 0.95 percent, SingTel dipped 0.83 percent, CapitaLand Integrated Trust slipped 0.58 percent, Genting Singapore was down 0.57 percent and CapitaLand Commercial Trust and Singapore Press Holdings were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is solid as stocks opened higher on Thursday and remained in the green throughout the session after two days of weakness.

The Dow climbed 300.19 points or 0.99 percent to finish at 30,603.36, while the NASDAQ gained 66.56 points or 0.50 percent to end at 13,337.16 and the S&P 500 added 36.61 points or 0.98 percent to close at 3,787.38.

The early rally on Wall Street followed a report from the Labor Department showing a bigger than expected drop in first-time claims for U.S. jobless benefits last week.

Also, the Commerce Department said economic growth matched estimates in the fourth quarter of 2020, and also that new home sales in the U.S. rebounded in December after falling in four consecutive months.

On the corporate scene, shares of Apple (AAPL) and Tesla (TSLA) slumped after disappointing earnings news, while heavily shorted stocks like GameStop (GME), AMC Entertainment (AMC) and Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) gave back ground after skyrocketing in the previous session.

Crude oil futures settled lower on Thursday on worries about the outlook for energy demand due to rising coronavirus cases, tighter lockdown restrictions and delays in vaccine supplies. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March sank $0.51 or 1 percent at $52.34 a barrel.

Closer to home, Singapore will see December numbers for bank lending, producer prices and import and export prices later today, as well as Q4 results for its business confidence index.

In November, bank lending was at SGD676.7 billion, while producer prices fell 9.4 percent on year, import prices gained 5.8 percent on year and export prices sank an annual 6.6 percent. The business confidence index score was -3.