Singapore Stock Market Set To Build On Thursday's Gains

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market on Thursday snapped the two-day slide in which it had stumbled almost 40 points or 1.9 percent. The Straits Times Index now rests just beneath the 3,250-point plateau and it's expected to see additional support on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian bourses is positive after interest rate concerns resulted in oversold markets. The European and U.S. markets were up and the Asian markets are tipped to open in similar fashion.

The STI finished modestly higher on Thursday following gains from the industrials and financials and mixed performances from the properties.

For the day, the index rose 14.32 points or 0.44 percent to finish at 3,247.80 after trading between 3,237.21 and 3,256.55. Volume was 1.5 billion shares worth 914.5 million Singapore dollars. There were 321 gainers and 187 decliners.

Among the actives, Ascendas REIT rose 0.35 percent, while CapitaLand Investment advanced 0.53 percent, City Developments was up 0.12 percent, DBS Group gained 0.46 percent, Hongkong Land dipped 0.20 percent, Keppel Corp rallied 1.00 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust retreated 1.59 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust sank 0.77 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust jumped 1.15 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation climbed 0.92 percent, SATS added 0.49 percent, SembCorp Industries surged 2.73 percent, Singapore Exchange fell 0.31 percent, SingTel soared 1.91 percent, United Overseas Bank collected 0.59 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding spiked 1.58 percent and Wilmar International, Genting Singapore, Yangzijiang Financial, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust, Singapore Technologies Engineering, Thai Beverage, Comfort DelGro, DFI Retail and Frasers Logistics were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened mixed on Thursday but quickly turned higher and maintained a largely positive bias throughout the day, ending near session highs.

The Dow spiked 322.55 points or 0.98 percent to finish at 33,291.78, while the NASDAQ surged 207.74 points or 1.67 percent to end at 12,639.27 and the S&P 500 jumped 58.35 points or 1.41 percent to end at 4,199.12.

The strength that emerged on Wall Street came as traders looked ahead to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's speech in the Jackson Hole Symposium later today.

Powell is widely expected to reiterate the central bank's hawkish stance, given the expectations that inflation in the U.S. will be persistent and it will take time to contain it. That has already largely been priced into the markets, however.

On the economic front, the Labor Department said the U.S. economy contracted an annualized 0.6 percent in the second quarter, following a 1.6 percent drop a quarter earlier. Also, the Labor Department said initial jobless claims dropped more than expected last week.

Crude oil futures settled lower Thursday, after posting gains in the previous two sessions. Oil prices fell as traders weighed the prospects for the return of Iranian oil to the market. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures ended lower by $2.37 or 2.5 percent at $92.52 a barrel.

Closer to home, Singapore will provide July numbers for industrial production and for import, export and producer prices later today. Industrial production is expected to rise 0.9 percent on month and 5.3 percent on year after sinking 8.5 percent on month and rising 2.2 percent on year in June. Producer prices surged 28.0 percent on year in June, while import prices spiked an annual 22.6 percent and export prices jumped 24.3 percent.