Singapore Shares May Tick Higher Again On Friday

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has moved higher in two straight sessions, gathering almost 20 points or 0.6 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 3,600-point plateau and it may add to its winnings on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to higher, likely driven by the latest earnings news. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The STI finished slightly higher on Thursday following gains from the financial shares, weakness from the properties and a mixed performance from the industrials.

For the day, the index rose 4.17 points or 0.12 percent to finish at 3,604.95 after trading between 3,604.11 and 3,628.05.

Among the actives, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust slid 0.49 percent, while CapitaLand Investment tumbled 1.02 percent, City Developments retreated 0.92 percent, Comfort DelGro shed 0.68 percent, DBS Group and Wilmar International both added 0.31 percent, DFI Retail surged 2.61 percent, Genting Singapore lost 0.60 percent, Hongkong Land plunged 1.99 percent, Keppel Ltd rallied 1.41 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust dropped 0.70 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust slumped 0.82 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust tanked 1.43 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation collected 0.20 percent, Seatrium Limited advanced 0.51 percent, SembCorp Industries fell 0.56 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering eased 0.21 percent, SingTel climbed 0.63 percent, Thai Beverage declined 0.93 percent, Yangzijiang Financial plummeted 2.41 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding sank 0.78 percent and Emperador, Keppel DC REIT and SATS were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is murky as the major averages opened mixed on Thursday and finished the same way.

The Dow dropped 140.59 points or 0.33 percent to finish at 42,374.36, while the NASDAQ climbed 138.83 points or 0.76 percent to close at 18,415.49 and the S&P 500 rose 12.44 points or 0.21 percent to end at 5,809.86.

The strength on the tech-heavy NASDAQ was spurred by strong quarterly earnings from the likes of Tesla (TSLA) and UPS (UPS).

On the other hand, the Dow was weighed by weak quarterly earnings news from IBM (IBM), Honeywell (HON) and Boeing (BA).

Oil prices fell on Thursday, extending losses from the previous session as concerns about excess supply and weak crude consumption in China weighed. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended down $0.58 or 0.8 percent at $70.19 a barrel.

Closer to home, Singapore will provide Q3 numbers for unemployment and September data for industrial production later today. In Q2, the jobless rate was 2.0 percent; in August, industrial production was up 6.7 percent on month and 21.0 percent on year.