Rally May Stall For Singapore Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has finished higher in back-to-back sessions, collecting more than 10 points or 0.3 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now sits just beneath the 3,325-point plateau although it may run out of steam on Tuesday. The global forecast for the Asian markets is flat to lower amid a lack of catalysts as investors take a wait-and-see attitude. The European markets finished slightly lower and the U.S. bourses were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets also figure to tick lower.

The STI finished slightly higher on Monday following mixed performances from the financial shares, property stocks and industrial issues.

For the day, the index perked 2.73 points or 0.08 percent to finish at 3,324.55 after trading between 3,307.78 and 3,326.88. Among the actives, Ascendas REIT shed 0.69 percent, while CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust jumped 1.49 percent, CapitaLand Investment added 0.52 percent, City Developments slid 0.27 percent, Comfort DelGro tumbled 1.65 percent, DBS Group improved 0.74 percent, Emperador climbed 0.99 percent, Genting Singapore advanced 0.86 percent, Keppel Corp sank 0.77 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust lost 0.42 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust retreated 1.12 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation and SembCorp Industries both collected 0.23 percent, SATS and United Overseas Bank both fell 0.37 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering skidded 0.80 percent, SingTel dropped 0.78 percent, Thai Beverage stumbled 1.52 percent, Wilmar International increased 0.73 percent, Yangzijiang Financial declined 1.30 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding spiked 1.63 percent and Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust and Hongkong Land were unchanged. The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages spent most of Monday hugging the line before finally ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow rose 66.44 points or 0.20 percent to finish at 33,875.40, while the NASDAQ dipped 35.25 points or 0.29 percent to close at 12,037.20 and the S&P 500 rose 3.52 points or 0.09 percent to end at 4,137.04.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders remained reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of earnings news from several big-name companies in the coming days.

Tech giants Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Intel (INTC), Meta Platforms (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) are among a slew of well-known companies due to report their quarterly results this week.

Reports on consumer confidence, new home sales, durable goods orders, first quarter GDP and personal income and spending are likely to attract attention in the coming days.

Crude oil futures settled higher on Monday following reports that OPEC is planning additional supply cuts. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June ended higher by $0.89 or 1.1 percent at $78.76 a barrel.