Renewed Consolidation Likely For Singapore Shares

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has moved higher in two of three trading days since the end of the three-day losing streak in which it had slipped almost 35 points or 1.1 percent. The Straits Times Index now sits just beneath the 3,150-point plateau although it figures to head south again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft, with energy and technology stocks likely to be under pressure. The European markets were mixed and little changed and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The STI finished modestly higher on Friday following gains from the properties and mixed performances from the financial shares and industrials.

For the day, the index gained 13.31 points or 0.42 percent to finish at 3,147.09 after trading between 3,142.70 and 3,157.48.

Among the actives, Ascendas REIT added 0.74 percent, while CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust surged 3.16 percent, CapitaLand Investment improved 0.75 percent, City Developments strengthened 1.23 percent, DBS Group eased 0.09 percent, DFI Retail skyrocketed 5.42 percent, Genting Singapore gained 0.56 percent, Hongkong Land soared 2.86 percent, Keppel DC REIT climbed 1.19 percent, Keppel Ltd gathered 0.28 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust rallied 1.53 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust accelerated 1.75 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust spiked 2.07 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation collected 0.76 percent, SATS sank 0.39 percent, Seatrium Limited advanced 1.11 percent, SembCorp Industries perked 0.20 percent, SingTel rose 0.42 percent, Wilmar International increased 0.60 percent, Yangzijiang Financial jumped 1.56 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding slumped 1.08 percent and Comfort DelGro, Emperador, Singapore Technologies Engineering and Thai Beverage were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened higher on Friday but fell into the red shortly thereafter, closing under water.

The Dow dropped 68.71 points or 0.18 percent to finish at 38.722.69, while the NASDAQ tumbled 188.29 points or 1.16 percent to end at 16,085.11 and the S&P 500 sank 33.67 points or 0.65 percent to close at 5,123.69. For the week, the NASDAQ slumped 1.2 percent, the Dow lost 0.9 percent and the S&P eased 0.3 percent.

The early strength on Wall Street came as the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report added to optimism about the outlook for interest rates. While job growth in February came in much stronger than expected, the report also showed notable downward revisions to job growth in the two previous months.

The downward revisions and the unexpected increase in the unemployment rate combined with a slowdown in the annual rate of wage growth has added to optimism the Federal Reserve will begin lowering interest rates in June.

Buying interest remained somewhat subdued, however, as traders seemed reluctant to continue buying stocks ahead of the release of key inflation data this week that could have a more profound impact on the outlook for rates.

Oil prices fell on Friday amid uncertainty about the outlook for demand, particularly from China after data showed a drop in the country's oil imports in the first two months of the year. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April shed $0.92 or 1.2 percent at $78.01 a barrel. WTI crude futures sank 2.5 percent in the week.