Singapore Bourse May Hand Back Thursday's Gains

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market on Thursday wrote a finish to the five-day losing streak in which it had stumbled almost 115 points or 3 percent. The Straits Tines Index now rests just above the 3,800-point plateau although it may face renewed selling pressure on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft, with oil and technology shares expected to lead the markets lower. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The STI finished modestly higher on Thursday following gains from the industrials, REITs and financials, while the properties were soft.

For the day, the index improved 28.55 points or 0.76 percent to finish at 3,801.13 after trading between 3,792.40 and 3,818.73.

Among the actives, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust spiked 2.09 percent, while CapitaLand Investment shed 0.40 percent, City Developments lost 0.20 percent, Comfort DelGro sank 0.71 percent, DBS Group collected 0.64 percent, Genting Singapore slumped 1.33 percent, Keppel DC REIT soared 2.34 percent, Keppel Ltd gained 0.59 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust accelerated 1.68 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust advanced 0.90 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust added 0.79 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation improved 0.89 percent, Seatrium Limited surged 3.20 percent, SembCorp Industries jumped 1.46 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering perked 0.21 percent, SingTel rose 0.32 percent, Thai Beverage dropped 0.92 percent, Wilmar International climbed 0.99 percent, Yangzijiang Financial strengthened 1.20 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding rallied 1.69 percent and Emperador, Hongkong Land, SATS and UOL Group were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened slightly higher on Thursday but quickly turned lower, spending most of the day in the red before finishing under water.

The Dow sank 68.42 points or 0.16 percent to finish at 43,153.13, while the NASDAQ slumped 172.95 points or 0.89 percent to close at 19,338.29 and the S&P 500 slipped 12.57 points or 0.21 percent to end at 5,937.34.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders took a step back to assess the near-term outlook for the markets following Wednesday's rally, which saw the major averages post their largest daily percentage gains in over two months.

Traders were also digesting a slew of U.S. economic data, including reports on weekly jobless claims, retail sales and import prices.

The data was largely in line with expectations and maintained optimism that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in the first half of this year.

Oil prices fell sharply on Thursday after Israel and Hamas agreed to implement a ceasefire agreement that was drafted and approved by the UN Security Council. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for February settled lower by $1.36 or 1.7 percent at $78.68 a barrel.

Closer to home, Singapore will provide December data for non-oil domestic exports later this morning; in November, NODX was up 14.7 percent on month and 3.4 percent on year for a trade surplus of SGD6.520 billion.