Singapore Bourse May Give Up Support At 4,200 Points

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has finished lower in two straight sessions, slipping more than 25 points or 0.6 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 4,230-point plateau and it may extend its losses on Tuesday. The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft ahead of key U.S. inflation data. The European markets were mixed and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets also figure to track into the red.

The STI finished slightly lower on Monday as losses from the industrials were mitigated by support from the financial sector. For the day, the index fell 7.05 points or 0.17 percent to finish at 4,232.78 after trading between 4,224.25 and 4,247.89. Among the actives, CapitaLand Ascendas REIT dropped 0.74 percent, while CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust gained 0.44 percent, City Developments gathered 0.32 percent, DBS Group was up 0.02 percent, DFI Retail Group sank 0.57 percent, Genting Singapore plunged 1.34 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust advanced 0.75 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust added 0.50 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation collected 0.54 percent, SATS lost 0.31 percent, Seatrium Limited stumbled 0.84 percent, SembCorp Industries plummeted 3.42 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering slumped 0.81 percent, SingTel tanked 1.26 percent, United Overseas Bank perked 0.14 percent, UOL Group fell 0.31 percent, Wilmar International rose 0.34 percent, Yangzijiang Financial increased 0.52 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding improved 0.70 percent and Hongkong Land, Keppel DC REIT, Keppel Ltd, Thai Beverage, CapitaLand Investment, Comfort DelGro and Mapletree Logistics Trust were unchanged. The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened mixed on Monday, rallied midday but then slumped in the afternoon and finished under water.

The Dow dropped 200.52 points or 0.45 percent to finish at 43,975.09, while the NASDAQ sank 64.62 points or 0.30 percent to close at 21,385.40 and the S&P 500 fell 16.00 points or 0.25 percent to end at 6,373.45.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of several closely watched economic reports in the coming days.

The Labor Department's report on consumer price inflation in the month of July is likely to be in focus later today as the data could impact the outlook for interest rates.

Ahead of the release of the data, CME Group's FedWatch Tool is indicating an 86.5 percent chance the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates by a quarter point next month.

Crude oil edged higher on Monday as Russia shrugged off the U.S. deadline to end its war with Ukraine or face sanctions. West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery was up $0.17 or 0.27 percent at $64.05 per barrel. Closer to home, Singapore will release Q2 numbers for gross domestic product later this morning; in the three months prior, GDP was up 4.3 percent on year.