Singapore Stock Market May See Additional Support On Monday

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has climbed higher in four straight sessions, improving more than 65 points or 1.5 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 4,250-point plateau and it's got a strong lead again for Monday's trade.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is upbeat on an improved outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were up and the Asian bourses are expected to follow that lead.

The STI finished modestly higher on Friday following gains from the financial shares, property stocks and industrial issues.

For the day, the index added 22.12 points or 0.52 percent to finish t 4,253.02 after trading between 4,227.93 and 4,253.89.

Among the actives, CapitaLand Investment added 0.37 percent, while City Developments advanced 0.74 percent, Comfort DelGro soared 2.08 percent, DBS Group increased 0.42 percent, DFI Retail Group stumbled 1.27 percent, Hongkong Land and Yangzijiang Financial both spiked 0.98 percent, Keppel DC REIT dropped 0.86 percent, Keppel Ltd rose 0.12 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust strengthened 0.85 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation collected 0.24 percent, Seatrium Limited jumped 0.87 percent, SembCorp Industries improved 0.66 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering fell 0.25 percent, SingTel surged 2.19 percent, Thai Beverage slumped 1.06 percent, United Overseas Bank rallied 0.88 percent, UOL Group climbed 0.82 percent, Wilmar International gained 0.34 percent and Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust, Mapletree Industrial Trust, CapitaLand Ascendas REIT, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust, Genting Singapore and SATS were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is solid as the major averages opened higher on Friday and continued to trend upward as the day continued, ending near session highs.

The Dow surged 846.24 points or 1.89 percent to finish at 45,631.74, while the NASDAQ rallied 396.23 points or 1.88 percent to end at 21,496.54 and the S&P 500 jumped 96.74 points or 1.52 percent to close at 6,466.91.

For the week, the Dow spiked 1.5 percent, the NASDAQ slipped 0.6 percent and the S&P rose 0.3 percent.

The rally on Wall Street came in reaction to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's highly anticipated speech before the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium.

While Powell touched only briefly on the outlook for monetary policy, his remarks have increased investor confidence that the Fed will lower interest rates next month.

Following Powell's remarks, CME Group's FedWatch Tool jumped to indicate an 83.1 percent chance the Fed will lower rates by a quarter point next month, up from 75.0 percent a day earlier.

Crude oil prices rose modestly on Friday as expectations of a Russia-Ukraine peace deal waned with no progress. West Texas Intermediate crude for October delivery was up $0.13 pr 0.20 percent at $63.65 per barrel.

Closer to home, Singapore will provide July numbers for consumer prices later today; in June, overall inflation was down 0.1 percent on month and up 0.8 percent on year, while core CPI rose an annual 0.6 percent.