Higher Open Anticipated For Singapore Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market on Friday snapped the two-day slide in which it had slipped almost 20 points or 0.6 percent. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 3,745-point plateau and it's expected to see continued strength on Monday.

The global forecast is positive, supported by increasing oil prices. The European and U.S. markets were up on Friday and the Asian markets are expected to open in similar fashion on Monday.

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

For the day, the index added 6.80 points or 0.18 percent to finish at 3,746.02 after trading between 3,738.75 and 3,755.04.

Among the actives, City Developments added 0.39 percent, while Comfort DelGro improved 0.68 percent, DBS Group sank 0.54 percent, DFI Retail tumbled 1.57 percent, Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust plummeted 2.67 percent, Genting Singapore jumped 1.97 percent, Hongkong Land slumped 1.06 percent, Keppel DC REIT retreated 1.33 percent, Keppel Ltd climbed 1.37 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust lost 0.44 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust dropped 0.79 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation collected 0.18 percent, SembCorp Industries rose 0.19 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering strengthened 1.52 percent, Thai Beverage rallied 1.94 percent, Wilmar International gained 0.33 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding advanced 0.75 percent and CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust, CapitaLand Investment, SATS, Seatrium Limited, Yangzijiang Financial, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust, SingTel, Emperador, Frasers Centrepoint Trust and Jardine Cycle were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened higher on Friday and mostly stayed that way, ending in the green.

The Dow surged 426.16 points or 0.97 percent to finish at a record 44,296.51, while the NASDAQ added 31.23 points or 0.16 percent to close at 19.003.65 and the S&P 500 gained 20.63 points or 0.35 percent to end at 5,969.34.

For the week, the Dow surged 2.0 percent, while the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 both shot up by 1.7 percent.

The advance by the markets came despite a pullback by shares of Nvidia (NVDA), as the AI darling tumbled by 3.2 percent despite having reporting better than expected third quarter earnings and revenues.

In U.S. economic news, revised data released by the University of Michigan showed consumer sentiment in the U.S. improved less than expected in November - although the index is still at its highest level since April.

Oil prices climbed higher on Friday amid rising concerns about Russia/Ukraine conflict. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January closed up $1.14 or 1.6 percent at $71.24 a barrel. WTI crude futures gained 6.5 percent in the week.

Closer to home, Singapore will provide October data for consumer prices later today; in September, overall inflation was up 0.3 percent on month and 2.0 percent on year, while core CPI rose an annual 2.8 percent.