Little Movement Seen For Singapore Stock Market

(RTTNews) - Ahead of Friday's market holiday for Election Day, the Singapore stock market had bounced higher again, one day after snapping the six-day winning streak in which it had jumped almost 70 points or 2.3 percent. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 3,230-point plateau although it may be stuck in neutral on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is cautiously optimistic over the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian bourses are tipped to follow that lead.

The STI finished modestly higher on Thursday following gains from the financials, weakness from the industrials and a mixed picture from the property stocks.

For the day, the index added 13.08 points or 0.41 percent to finish at 3,233.30 after trading between 3,216.52 and 3,239.15.

Among the actives, Ascendas REIT dropped 0.72 percent, while CapitaLand Investment soared 3.18 percent, City Developments sank 0.60 percent, Comfort DelGro slumped 0.78 percent, DBS Group gained 0.45 percent, Emperador climbed 0.99 percent, Genting Singapore skidded 1.13 percent, Keppel Corp jumped 1.31 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation collected 0.64 percent, SATS rallied 2.37 percent, Seatrium Limited added 0.69 percent, SembCorp Industries tumbled 2.01 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering retreated 1.80 percent, SingTel advanced 0.85 percent, Thai Beverage declined 1.72 percent, Wilmar International surged 4.71 percent, Yangzijiang Financial spiked 2.82 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding plunged 2.31 percent and Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust, Mapletree Industrial Trust, Mapletree Logistics Trust, Hongkong Land, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust, DFI Retail and Frasers Logistics were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is slightly higher as the major averages opened higher but quickly faded and hugged the unchanged line, finally ending mixed.

The Dow climbed 115.81 points or 0.33 percent to finish at 34,837.71, while the NASDAQ eased 3.19 points or 0.02 percent to close at 14,031.81 and the S&P 500 rose 8.11 points or 0.18 percent to end at 4,515.77. For the week, the NASDAQ spiked 3.3 percent, the S&P 500 surged 2.5 percent and the Dow jumped 1.4 percent.

The lackluster performance on Wall Street followed the release of a mixed employment from the Labor Department. While the closely watched report showed modestly stronger than expected job growth in August, the report also showed an unexpected increase in the unemployment rate.

The increase in the unemployment rate added to optimism about the Federal Reserve leaving interest rates unchanged later this month, but traders continued to express some uncertainty about future meetings.

In other economic news, the Institute for Supply Management reported a slowdown in the pace of contraction in U.S. manufacturing activity last month.

Crude oil showed another significant move to the upside during trading on Friday, extending recent gains over supply concerns. West Texas Intermediate crude for October delivery surged $1.92 or 2.3 percent to $85.55 a barrel, closing higher for the seventh straight session. The price of crude oil soared 7.2 percent for the week.