Singapore Shares May See Continued Consolidation

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market on Wednesday snapped the six-day winning streak in which it had jumped more than 120 points or 2.9 percent. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 4,440-point plateau and it may take further damage on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is murky on easing optimism over the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and the Asian bourses are likely to follow suit.

The STI finished slightly lower on Wednesday following losses from the financial shares and mixed performances from the property stocks and industrial issues. For the day, the index shed 10.15 points or 0.23 percent to finish at 4,440.21 after trading between 4,434.14 and 4,452.64. Among the actives, CapitaLand Ascendas REIT shed 0.69 percent, while CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust gathered 0.42 percent, CapitaLand Investment dropped 0.74 percent, City Developments slipped 0.40 percent, Comfort DelGro stumbled 1.36 percent, DBS Group fell 0.65 percent, Genting Singapore lost 0.68 percent, Keppel Ltd added 0.51 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust retreated 1.34 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust rose 0.45 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust surged 2.26 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation dipped 0.30 percent, SATS slid 0.58 percent, SembCorp Industries slumped 0.76 percent, SingTel gained 0.47 percent, Thai Beverage tumbled 1.03 percent, United Overseas Bank eased 0.11 percent, UOL Group sank 0.73 percent, Wilmar International was down 0.32 percent, Yangzijiang Financial skidded 0.93 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding rallied 1.15 percent and Hongkong Land, Keppel DC REIT, Seatrium Limited, Singapore Technologies Engineering and DFI Retail Group were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened higher and stayed that way for much of the day before slumping late in the session to finish mixed and little changed.

The Dow slipped 74.37 points or 0.16 percent to finish at 47,632.00, while the NASDAQ climbed 130.98 points or 0.55 percent to finish at a record 23,958.47 and the S&P 500 dipped 0.30 points or 0.00 percent to end at 6,890.59.

Early support came from the tech shares after Nvidia (NVDA) became the first company with a $5 trillion market capitalization.

The late-day weakness followed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's comments after the central bank's monetary policy announcement. While the Fed lowered interest rates by another quarter point as expected, Powell's post-meeting remarks offset optimism for another rate cut in December.

Powell said a further reduction in rates in December is "not a foregone conclusion," noting Fed officials had "strongly differing views about how to proceed" at the final meeting of the year.

Highlighting the high level of uncertainty due to government shutdown delaying key data, Powell also said there's a "growing chorus" that feels the Fed should "wait a cycle" to continue cutting rates.

Crude oil prices bounced higher on Wednesday after a report from the Energy Information Administration showed a steep drop by U.S. crude oil inventories last week. West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery was up $0.31 or 0.5 percent at $60.46 per barrel.

Closer to home, Singapore will provide Q3 data for unemployment later today; in the previous quarter, the jobless rate was 2.0 percent.