Singapore Shares Likely To Open In The Red On Tuesday

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has moved lower in consecutive trading days, easing almost 10 points or 0.3 percent in that span. The Straits Times Index now sits just beneath the 3,800-point plateau and it's expected to extend its losses again on Tuesday. The global forecast for the Asian markets is weak, with oil and technology stocks expected to lead the way lower. The European and U.S. markets were mostly lower and the Asian bourses figure to follow suit. The STI finished modestly lower on Monday following losses from the trusts, gains from the banks and mixed performances from the properties and industrials. For the day, the index lost 7.55 points or 0.20 percent to finish at 3,796.71 after trading between 3,790.75 and 3,806.06. Among the actives, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust retreated 1.03 percent, while City Developments sank 0.40 percent, DBS Group collected 0.21 percent, DFI Retail added 0.44 percent, Genting Singapore tumbled 1.34 percent, Hongkong Land rallied 1.41 percent, Keppel DC REIT plummeted 7.93 percent, Keppel Ltd slumped 0.73 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust plunged 2.73 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation perked 0.12 percent, SATS dropped 0.58 percent, Seatrium Limited tanked 1.77 percent, SembCorp Industries lost 0.36 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering jumped 1.46 percent, Thai Beverage declined 0.93 percent, Wilmar International skidded 0.65 percent, Yangzijiang Financial climbed 1.11 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding strengthened 1.34 percent and Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust, CapitaLand Investment, SingTel, Emperador, Mapletree Logistics Trust and Comfort DelGro were unchanged. The lead from Wall Street is pretty awful as the major averages opened under water on Monday. The Dow managed to climb into positive territory, but the NASDAQ and S&P 500 finished with heavy losses.

The Dow advanced 289.33 points or 0.65 percent to finish at 44,713.58, while the NASDAQ plummeted 612.47 points or 3.07 percent to close at 19,341.83 and the S&P 500 sank 88.96 points or 1.46 percent to end at 6,012.28.

The sell-off On Wall Street came amid substantial weakness among technology stocks, with AI darling and sector leader Nvidia (NVDA) leading the way lower. The plunge by Nvidia comes after Chinese startup DeepSeek's AI Assistant overtook rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application available on Apple's App Store in the United States.

Concerns about the outlook for interest rates also weighed on Wall Street ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting this week.

While the Fed is almost universally expected to leave interest rates unchanged, traders are likely to pay close attention to the accompanying statement for clues about the outlook for rates. Recent economic data has led to concerns about the Fed leaving rates on hold for a prolonged period.

Oil prices fell sharply on Monday amid concerns about tariff threats and uncertainty about U.S. trade policy. Also, weak manufacturing data from China has raised concerns about the outlook for demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March closed down $1.49 or 2 percent at $73.17 a barrel. Closer to home, Singapore will release preliminary Q4 data for unemployment later today; in the previous three months, the jobless rate was 1.9 percent.